Anchoring Heuristic in Experts Decision: Results Under the Manipulation Test

Abstract

Although technology-assisted decisions have advanced in recent years, the decision-making process is still essentially human. Personal decision or context variables are explored throughout the process and the variable knowledge appears as important for literature, when looking to verify its intervention. Cognitive biases, among them anchoring, are the focus of several studies on their influence, as well as the level of knowledge of the decision-maker on the subject matter of the decision, classified as specialists and novices. Thus, the research problem arises: is the effect of Anchoring Heuristics affected by the manipulation of decision makers' knowledge? In order to answer this question, a quasi-experiment was performed with 324 decision subjects, divided into Calibration Groups and Experimental Groups, using the Jacowitz and Kahneman Model (1995). The study brings as its main results from the Manipulation Test (Cozby, 2006) of the knowledge variable the lack of anchoring effect in experts decision related to their field of knowledge, these results going against Northcraft e Neale (1987) e Dorow (2009).

anchoring; biases; levels of knowledge; specialists