Why the First Number Sticks

The Anchoring Effect in Prices, Salaries and Everyday Decisions

Why an initial number can quietly reshape what feels expensive, reasonable or likely

A first number can become a reference point before we have decided whether it deserves that role.

The chair did not change. The comparison did.

You enter a showroom and see a chair marked at £1,200. A second chair costs £680. Without the first price, £680 might have felt extravagant. Beside £1,200, it can begin to feel restrained. Nothing about the second chair has changed. What changed was the reference point against which your mind evaluated it.

Psychologists call this pattern the anchoring effect: an initial value can pull a later numerical estimate or judgement towards itself. Anchors may come from prices, suggested donations, opening offers, previous salaries, expert forecasts or numbers generated inside our own minds.

IN ONE SENTENCE

The anchoring effect occurs when an initial number or reference point influences a later estimate, even when the starting value is incomplete, weakly relevant or arbitrary.

A wheel of fortune that moved estimates

In the best-known demonstration, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman asked people to watch a wheel of fortune that had been rigged to stop at either 10 or 65. Participants then judged whether the percentage of African countries in the United Nations was higher or lower than that number and estimated the actual percentage.

The arbitrary spin should have been irrelevant. Yet median estimates differed: 25 after the wheel stopped at 10, and 45 after it stopped at 65. The wheel did not provide knowledge about the United Nations. It supplied a starting point that pulled later estimates in its direction.

An arbitrary number can influence a later estimate even when it offers no genuine evidence about the answer.

Why does anchoring happen?

There is no single explanation that covers every anchoring task. Research points to several routes, and the route may depend on where the anchor came from.

1. We adjust, but stop too soon

When people begin from a value they already know, such as the freezing point of water, they may move away from it until an answer first enters a plausible range. Nicholas Epley and Thomas Gilovich found evidence that adjustment often ends near the anchor-facing edge of that range rather than at its centre.

2. The anchor makes matching information easier to retrieve

When judging whether a target is higher or lower than a suggested value, people may temporarily test how the anchor could be right. This can make anchor-consistent knowledge more accessible. A high anchor directs attention towards reasons the answer might be high; a low anchor invites reasons it might be low.

3. The number changes the scale of comparison

In ordinary decisions, an anchor can establish what counts as cheap, expensive, generous or ambitious. A sale price is experienced relative to the displayed original price; a salary request is interpreted relative to the first figure mentioned. This does not mean the first figure always wins. It means later judgement begins in a landscape the first figure has already altered.

Where anchors appear in everyday life

• Shopping: a crossed-out “original” price can make the current price feel better, even before value or alternatives are checked.

• Negotiation: an opening offer can shape the range within which later counteroffers feel reasonable.

• Budgets and forecasts: last year’s figure can dominate planning even when circumstances have changed.

• Donations and tips: suggested amounts provide a ready-made scale for what counts as normal or generous.

• Performance judgements: an early score, expectation or label can become a reference point for later evaluation.

Anchoring is not proof that a seller, manager or negotiator intended manipulation. Some anchors are necessary and informative. A recent comparable sale, validated salary range or evidence-based baseline may be exactly the right place to begin. The question is not whether a number came first, but whether it deserves the influence it receives.

What the evidence can and cannot tell us

Anchoring is a well-established experimental phenomenon, but its size varies with the task, anchor, knowledge, incentives and decision environment. Research in legal decision-making and economic valuation finds that numerical anchors can shift judgements on average, but effects are heterogeneous rather than universal.

An experiment showing a group-level shift does not allow us to diagnose an individual as “anchored.” Nor does anchoring explain every high purchase, conservative forecast or failed negotiation. Preferences, knowledge, constraints, power, emotion and genuine market information also matter.

REALITY CHECK

Anchoring is an influence on judgement, not mind control. Expertise can help, but familiarity alone does not guarantee immunity, especially when the anchor seems relevant.

The independent-estimate reset

The most useful protection is to build a reference point from evidence before adopting someone else’s number.

Estimate before exposure: define a range, identify evidence and compare several independent reference points.

1. Pause before accepting the scale

Ask what made this the starting number. Is it evidence, convention, negotiation strategy or simply the first figure available?

2. Make an independent estimate

Before checking the asking price or opening offer, write your own best estimate when possible. Add a reasonable low and high value rather than pretending there is one perfect number.

3. Use more than one reference point

Look for several relevant comparators drawn from different sources. Three imperfect estimates usually reveal more than one dramatic anchor.

4. Reverse the question

After considering why the value could be high, deliberately ask why it could be lower, and vice versa. This interrupts one-sided evidence retrieval.

5. Delay consequential decisions

For salaries, major purchases, contracts or treatment estimates, create enough time to verify assumptions and obtain appropriately qualified advice where needed.

Final takeaway

The first number in the room is psychologically privileged, but it is not automatically true. Anchoring matters because it can make a later judgement feel self-generated when its scale was partly borrowed.

The goal is not to distrust every price, forecast or opening offer. It is to restore proportion: ask where the number came from, make an independent estimate, compare several relevant anchors and let evidence rather than sequence determine what feels reasonable.

REMEMBER

A number can start the conversation without being allowed to finish it.

Mini glossary

Term	Plain-language meaning
Anchor	An initial value or reference point that influences a later judgement.
Anchoring effect	A shift in an estimate or judgement towards an initial reference point.
Adjustment	Moving away from a starting value when forming an estimate.
Selective accessibility	The increased availability of information consistent with an anchor.
Comparator	A relevant alternative or reference used to evaluate a value.
Debiasing	A deliberate method intended to reduce a predictable judgement error.

References and further reading

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185(4157), 1124–1131. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124

Mussweiler, T., & Strack, F. (1999). Hypothesis-consistent testing and semantic priming in the anchoring paradigm: A selective accessibility model. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(2), 136–164. https://doi.org/10.1006/jesp.1998.1364

Epley, N., & Gilovich, T. (2006). The anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic: Why the adjustments are insufficient. Psychological Science, 17(4), 311–318. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01704.x

Bystranowski, P., Janik, B., Próchnicki, M., & Skórska, P. (2021). Anchoring effect in legal decision-making: A meta-analysis. Law and Human Behavior, 45(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000438

Li, L., Maniadis, Z., & Sedikides, C. (2021). Anchoring in economics: A meta-analysis of studies on willingness to pay and willingness to accept. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 90, 101629. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2020.101629

EDUCATIONAL NOTE

This article is for education and reflection. It does not determine another person’s intentions, provide financial or legal advice, or guarantee that any individual decision was caused by anchoring.