Anchoring

The tendency to lean on the first number that enters a decision — the “anchor” — as the reference point against which everything after it is judged. Adjustments away from the anchor are systematically too small, so whoever sets the anchor shapes the whole range. In pricing, this is why you name a deliberately high figure early: a buyer who first hears a large number reads your real target as reasonable and your floor as a bargain. Anchor against the buyer’s upside, not the going market rate — anchor against the market and you’ve handed them a spec sheet to shop.

Source: Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman first documented anchoring-and-adjustment in “Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” (Science, 1974) — showing that even an obviously arbitrary starting number pulls people’s estimates toward it (INDEPENDENT). Blair Enns applies it directly to selling expertise: open against a high anchor because “the adjustment never compensates for the initial assessment done against the high anchor” (PRACTITIONER).

First used in: 3.1 · The value conversation