Glossary A
Glossary A
Anchoring and adjustment heuristic is a mental shortcut that involves using a number or value as a starting point, and then adjusting one's answer away from this anchor; people often do not adjust their answer sufficiently.
Deutsch: Ankerheuristik / Español: Heurística de anclaje / Português: Heurística de ancoragem / Français: Heuristique d'ancrage / Italiano: Euristica dell'ancoraggio
The Anchoring Heuristic is a cognitive bias in which individuals rely too heavily on an initial piece of information—the "anchor"—when making decisions or judgments. This psychological phenomenon, first systematically described by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1974, demonstrates how human reasoning can be influenced by irrelevant or arbitrary reference points, often leading to systematic errors in estimation and evaluation. As a fundamental concept in behavioral economics and decision-making research, the anchoring heuristic reveals the limitations of intuitive judgment under uncertainty.