The anchoring effect in the terms of behavioural economics

Abstract

The assumptions of rational choice or, more generally, standard economic theory have had great success regarding their contributions to economic theory. However, some of their assumptions are systematically inconsistent with some real-world observations and controlled experiments. These observations strongly remark on the existence of cognitive biases and heuristics. It is assumed that anchoring is one of the most robust cognitive bias, since it works implicitly, without an individual’s awareness. In this study, the anchoring effect will be discussed and analysed regarding its types and empirical findings. The research aims to distinguish the anchors in terms of their types. As a result, the author discovers five types of anchors: regular informative anchors, self-generated anchors, regular uninformative anchors, basic anchors, and incidental environmental anchors. The author claims that regular informative anchors should not be considered a cognitive bias, since their informativeness levels are sufficient to make rational estimations for unknown values. Moreover, since benefitting from regular informative anchors does not violate the rationality principle, they are not a part of a study of behavioural economics.