Anchoring, Information, Expertise, and Negotiation: New Insights from Meta-Analysis
![handle is hein.journals/ohjdpr21 and id is 607 raw text is: Anchoring, Information, Expertise, and
Negotiation: New Insights from Meta-Analysis
DAN ORR* & CHRIS GUTHRIE**
I. INTRODUCTION
Suppose that we asked you whether the average temperature in San
Francisco was higher or lower than 558 degrees.1 Do you think this question
would influence your estimate of the average temperature in the city?
Suppose instead that we asked you whether the average price of a college
textbook was higher or lower than $7,128.53.2 Would this question havean
impact on your estimate of the average price of such a text? What if we asked
you whether the number of top 10 Beatles' records was higher or lower
than 100,025?3 Would this affect your estimate of the number of Beatles'
albums that did make the top 10?
You wouldn't think so, but you would probably be wrong. Due to a
phenomenon that psychologists call anchoring,4 we are often unduly
influenced by the initial figure we encounter when estimating the value of an
item. This initial value serves as a kind of reference point or benchmark that
anchors our expectations about the item's actual value.5
Negotiation and dispute resolution scholars have observed that this
phenomenon could have an impact on negotiation. In a number of studies,
* Associate, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. B.A. University of Pennsylvania; M.A.
Annenberg School for Communication (University of Pennsylvania); J.D. Vanderbilt
University Law School.
** Associate Dean for Academic Affairs & Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University
Law School; B.A. Stanford; Ed.M. Harvard; J.D. Stanford. For comments on earlier
drafts, we are indebted to Russell Korobkin, Greg Mitchell, and Jennifer Robbennolt. For
helpful research assistance, we thank Kia McClain and Don Nguyen. For library
assistance, we thank Michael Jackson.
1 SCOTT PLous, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING 146 (1993)
(reporting the results of an unpublished study conducted by George Quattrone and
colleagues).
2Id.
31d.
4 Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and
Biases, 185 SCI. 1124, 1128-30 (1974) (introducing anchoring).
5 Id. at 1128 ([D]ifferent starting points yield different estimates, which are biased
toward the initial values.).
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Anchoring, Information, Expertise, and Negotiation: New Insights from Meta-Analysis
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