In some studies, researchers have even told people that the number they heard is irrelevant and specifically asked them not to let it influence their judgment. Still, it did. What’s happening here is that Gut is using something psychologists call the anchoring and adjustment heuristic, or what I’ll call the Anchoring Rule. When we are uncertain about the correct answer and we make a guess, Gut grabs hold of the nearest number—which is the most recent number it heard. Head then adjusts but “adjustments tend to be insufficient,” write psychologists Nicholas Epley and Thomas Gilovich, “leaving
...more
