The Anchoring Effects of Value in a Scale of Judgements

The investigation is concerned with assessing the effects of value on judgements of weight of a series of stimuli. It was found that an association of value with either the heavy or the light end of the series leads to changes in the judged relationships between the stimuli of the series; the most pronounced effect is that the stimuli at the opposite ends of the series tend to be judged as more different from each other in the value than in the neutral condition. In a control experiment, in which value was associated indiscriminately with all the stimuli of the series, no such effects were observed. Further control experiments, in which the end stimuli of the series were emphasized by means other than attaching value to them, also yielded negative results. The study is viewed in the context of the general problem of the effects that abstract attributes of stimuli may have on judgements of their physical characteristics. An explanation of the findings is formulated in terms of anchoring, and their relevance to perceptual over‐estimation and to some related problems is discussed.