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Beginning Template Titles for Anchoring Experiment

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Beginning Template Titles for Anchoring Experiment

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Option 1: Evaluating the anchoring effect of implausible information in the guesses of ___________. (i.e. the # of South Park episodes, Ghandi's age, population of a city)

Option 2: Evaluating the effect of anchoring in guesses of the ________________.

Option 3: Evaluating the effect of anchoring in guesses in the relation to the ______________

Create Your Own!

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This is a paragraph that discusses the background information that relates to the research concepts you are studying. DO NOT copy the information from the sources provided. You may select some facts to incorporate from the information, but this should be a summary of the topic in YOUR OWN WORDS. The rest of the information for your introduction should come from the research you conduct in class.

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The purpose or problem states the reason(s) why you are doing the experiment. Write down exactly the problem that will be investigated or experimented. Purposes can be stated as a question.  The purpose is written as part of the last paragraph of the Introduction. This should be a statement of what the problem is and why we would want to solve this problem. Be sure to include the dependent and independent variables in your answer.

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Are we always in control of our thoughts, or can they be influenced by invisible forces? The art of persuasion and subtle manipulation is a fascinating field of study in psychology. In this post, we'll look at how people can manipulate our cognitive biases to influence our decision-making. One of the more interesting cognitive biases is the "anchoring effect."
The anchoring effect is "...a systematic influence of initially presented numerical values on subsequent judgments of uncertain quantities," (Teovanovic, 2019). What does that mean? It means you can give someone a random number and that can influence their guess about the value of an unrelated item.

Let's look at an example. Imagine you pick a pingpong ball out of a bag. That ball has a number written on it, let's say, 99. You're then given a bottle of champagne and asked to say for how much you are willing to buy that champagne. The chances are that you will say you are willing to spend more money than someone else who picked out a pingpong ball with the number 10 on it. Don't believe me? You can see this demonstrated in this BBC documentary (watch from 23:10 link).
Read More
In one of their earliest studies on the anchoring effect Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky got participants to spin a wheel. It was designed to land on 10 or 65. This was the "anchor." They then asked the participants to guess what % of the countries in the United Nations were from Africa. If participants landed on 10 their average guess was 25%. If they landed on 65 their average guess was almost double at 45% (Kahmenan and Tversky, 1974 link).

According to the IB Psychology guide, the anchoring effect is an example of a heuristic and can be used in exams on questions about cognitive biases.

The anchoring effect is one of many cognitive biases that Kahneman and Tversky uncovered in their decades of research. It is also one of the most robust findings in cognitive psychology but it's very difficult to explain. Before we get into trying to explain the anchoring effect, let's look at one more interesting study.

Gandhi and the Anchoring Effect (Strack and Mussweiler, 1997)

This study shows that numbers that are impossibly linked to the target question can still have an effect. Their aim was to see how the anchoring effect could influence guesses of Mahatma Gandhi age when he died.
Methods:

Participants were 60 male and female German University students.

They were asked two questions.

Half of the participants were asked if Gandhi was older or younger than 9 years old when he died.

The other half were asked if he was older or younger than 140 years old.

They were then asked how old they think he was when he died.

Results:
Participants in the high anchor condition guessed on average he was 67 years old, whereas those in the low anchor condition guessed he was 50 years old when he died.
Conclusions and Applications:
This study demonstrates the anchoring effect - numerical information given to participants before making a judgment can influence their later judgements. It also shows it can have an effect even if the numbers are implausible.

Explanation

Anchoring and Availability Heuristic: One explanation is that the anchoring effect occurs because people begin their judgement with the anchor and then adjust step-by-step until they reach the desired answer. In the above example, participants in the high anchor condition might begin at 140 and realize this is far too high so adjust by reducing the number until they get to something that seems reasonable. The same would work for the low anchor condition, but they adjust upwards.

The anchor is the information that is easily accessible (available) and this is used in the judgement. (A heuristic is a cognitive short-cut, so here the anchor is used as a short-cut to making a guess).

Dual Processing Model: A second explanation is that System 1 and System thinking can explain anchoring. In terms of System 1 (fast, intuitive, automatic), participants' anchor-consistent knowledge is activated by the anchor. This influences their guess. For example, people in the 140 condition might link this number to the fact that Gandhi was old when he died, so 67 sounds about right.On the other hand, those in the 9 condition might have some other knowledge activated, like he died too young (he was assassinated), resulting in a lower guess.

Alternatively, they might use System 2 processing if they start their guess with the anchor and then re-adjust from there. e.g. they know 140 is too high so they make readjustments. This requires more cognitive effort than the first approach. (Teovanovic, 2019).

IB Psychology IA Anchoring effect studies can be used for the internal assessment. Before they're used, make sure students can provide one theoretical explanation for the effect. This will help them get top marks.

Critical Thinking Considerations

Do you think all people are equally vulnerable to the anchoring effect? There are numerous studies that show some types of people are more vulnerable than others. Can you hypothesize what character traits might be related to anchoring?

The anchoring effect has been applied in marketing. How do you think it could be used?

References

Teovanović, Predrag. Individual Differences in Anchoring Effect: Evidence for the Role of Insufficient Adjustment. Europe's Journal of Psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 (Link)

Fritz Strack and Mussweile, Thomas. Considering the Impossible: Explaining the Effects of Implausible Anchors. Social Cognition, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2001, pp. 145-160 (Link)(Link 2)

Fritz Strack and Mussweile, Thomas. Explaining the Enigmatic Anchoring Effect: Mechanisms of Selective Accessibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1997, Vol. 73, No. 3, 437-446. (Link)

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Key Study: Gandhi and the Anchoring Effect | IB Psychology

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Are we always in control of our thoughts, or can they be influenced by invisible forces? The art of persuasion and subtle manipulation is a fascinating field of study in psychology. In this post, we'll look at how people can manipulate our cognitive biases to influence our decision-making.

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What is the Materials & Methods Section?

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What is the Materials & Methods Section?

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This section should be written out in paragraph form IN YOUR OWN WORDS. Include all of the materials you used in the lab, and each and every step you went through to do the lab. Someone should be able to use your Materials and Methods section to do the experiment and get the same results.

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This will include all data collected in the form of charts, tables, drawings, diagrams, and/or graphs to explain or demonstrate your observations in the lab. Be sure that your graphs, tables, figures, or diagrams are neatly, completely, and properly labeled with a complete title. You will also be required to write several paragraphs explaining what the data is. IMPORTANT! You do not analyze your data in this section. You simply explain what the data is.

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What is the discussion/conclusion section?

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What is the discussion/conclusion section?

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This section summarizes the experiment, what your results mean, provides whether your results supported your hypothesis, and what the next steps are in regards to proceeding with this project. This is your analysis section. Explain in detail what the data means. Why did you get the results that you did?

You will write:

1)     Was your hypothesis supported?

2)     What you learned (i.e. answer the problem stated above).

3)     What further experiments might be done to answer the question better or differently.

4)     How this applies to the main research topic, and what are the real life applications.

5)     Also explain any unanswered questions or any errors that occurred during the lab.

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***Each of the six headings must be a LABELED HEADING in your lab report. Skip lines between each section. (printed/online) Make sure that your report is double spaced, and 12pt Times New Roman font.***

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The following is the format you will follow to write all of your lab reports.

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The title says what you did. It should be brief (aim for ten words or less) and describe the main point of the experiment or investigation.

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This is your testable question.  It is not mandatory, but can be stated as an “If, then”, and should explain why you came up with this hypothesis.

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The purpose of this experiment is to more fully understand the implications of heuristics, mental shortcuts, on choice and evaluations. Heuristics are developed on prior experience and can lead to bias when evaluating circumstances that are either novel, high stress, or limited time to process.

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What materials will you use in this experiment? 

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What materials will you use in this experiment? 

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Computer or smart phone
Internet Connection
Microsoft Forms

Did you use any of these?
(Be specific)

Email (Outlook, gmail, yahoo)

Social Media (FB, IG, Twitter, Snapchat, tictok, )

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How did you administer the survey?

What controls did you include to maintain consistency and uniformity?