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Perceptual and Cognitive Judgments Show Both Anchoring and Repulsion

Jake Spicer¹; Jian-Qiao Zhu¹; Nick Chater²; Adam N. Sanborn¹

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Warwick · ² Warwick Business School, University of Warwick ,

One of the most robust effects in cognitive psychology is anchoring, in which judgments show a bias toward previously viewed values. However, in what is essentially the same task as used in anchoring research, a perceptual illusion demonstrates the opposite effect of repulsion. Here, we united these two literatures, testing in two experiments with adults (total N = 200) whether prior comparative decisions bias cognitive and perceptual judgments in opposing directions or whether anchoring and repulsion are two domain-general biases whose co-occurrence has so far gone undetected. We found that in both perceptual and cognitive tasks, anchoring and repulsion co-occur. Further, the direction of the bias depends on the comparison value: Distant values attract judgments, whereas nearby values repulse judgments. Because none of the leading theories for either effect account for both biases, theoretical integration is needed. As a starting point, we describe one such joint theory based on sampling models of cognition.

DOI

10.1177/09567976221089599

Volume

33 (9)

Pages

1395-1407

Language

en

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