Anchoring: accessibility as a cause of judgmental assimilation

Anchoring denotes assimilation of judgment toward a previously considered value — an anchor. The selective accessibility model argues that anchoring is a result of selective accessibility of information compatible with an anchor. The present review shows the similarities between anchoring and knowledge accessibility effects. Both effects depend on the applicability of the accessible information, which is also used similarly. Furthermore, both knowledge accessibility and anchoring influence the time needed for the judgment and both display temporal robustness. Finally, we offer recent evidence for the selective accessibility model and demonstrate how the model can be applied to reducing the anchoring effect.

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