Estimating the informative: Anchoring in estimations of observed ratios

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine if anchoring effects occur in ratio judgements where the object of the estimation is visually examined by the estimator. In addition to this, impact of personal experience concerning the source of the anchor along with any potential reduction in anchor susceptibility due to abstract reasoning capabilities was also examined. This was done through an experimental survey on 159 participants recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. No reliable results were found. Primacy effects due to experimental design and issues in sampling are discussed.