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Anchoring Bias, or How To Do Self Assessments

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There are few assessments as confusing as self-assessments. Is my performance in class at an A, or at a B? Am I 'exemplifying' the 'Learning Habits' expectations, or merely 'meeting' them? What is that even supposed to mean? As if those questions aren't hard enough to answer, there's also the concern about how your teacher will view your assessment of yourself. Some fear that modest self-evaluations may result in a lower final grade by skewing the teacher's thought process toward an unfavourable judgement. Yet going the opposite direction, and grading yourself generously, is also perceived to be harmful. One of my teachers notably quipped that self-assessments are 'a great way to find out who's delusional!'

So, should you evaluate yourself conservatively or should you give yourself the benefit of the doubt? Worry no more, for a finding from behavioural economics may hold your answer.

It's called anchoring, and don't be deceived by the image above, this has nothing to do with ships. Anchoring is a well established cognitive bias that describes the human tendency to rely disproportionately on the first piece of information received when making decisions.

Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, along with his research partner Amos Tversky, were among the first researchers to study anchoring. One of their earliest studies involved an arithmetic problem, the answer to which participants had to compute within five seconds. The first group was asked to find 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8, whilst the second group had to solve 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1. Naturally, five seconds was not enough time for most people to solve the problem, so participants made estimates. Although the product of both sets of numbers is clearly the same, those who were presented with the smaller numbers at the beginning of the sequence provided a median estimate of 512, while those whose sequence began with the larger numbers had a median estimate nearly four times higher: 2,250. (The correct answer, unsurprisingly, is much higher than either estimate—40,320.)

In another notable example, participants were randomly shown either the number 10 or the number 65, and then asked to guess the percentage of UN members that were African nations. Participants who saw the number 10 estimated the proportion to be 25% of the UN, while participants who saw 65 estimated it to be 45% of the UN.

The anchoring effect has also been proven to work when the anchoring prompt provided is ridiculous. An experiment was conducted in which half the subjects were asked if Gandhi died at the age of 9 (yes, 9!) and the other half were asked if he died aged 140. Participants were then asked to guess Gandhi's actual age at death. Those primed with the lower number estimated it to be 50, while those primed with the higher number estimated 67. This anchoring bias occurs not only when the anchors are far beyond the range of possibility, but also when test subjects are told about the effect and instructed to prevent any information they've received from influencing their answer.

Relatedly, studies have found the potency of anchoring in negotiations, both from business and political perspectives. Kahneman frequently highlights the benefits of being the first to table a proposal in a negotiation, as this gives one the advantage of implicitly setting the terms for the discussion moving forward. The idea is that even submitting an offer one knows will be taken as outrageous can be helpful in mentally guiding a counterpart toward a favoured outcome.

The mental accessibility of a particular number or figure that is presented in conjunction with a question leads to an unpreventable cognitive bias toward judgements based around—'anchored' by—that number. Our brains engage in something behavioural economists term 'anchoring and adjustment.' Essentially, we tend to start at an implicitly suggested reference point, the anchor, and then adjust upwards or downwards from there. Alas, as seen, these adjustments are rarely sufficient.

What does all of that mean for us as we deal with self-assessments? The question your teacher needs to answer is what grade you deserve. If behavioural economics is anything to go by, your self-assessment has significant power to set an anchor around which the final judgement will be made. With that in mind, being self-effacing may not serve you too well when you grade yourself. But do be careful, or maybe your teacher really will think you're delusional.

Disclaimer: Obviously, anchoring won't work if your grade happens to be based on a strict percentage or number of marks on a test...and if your last four test grades have been Fs, don't expect 'anchoring' your teacher at an A to have any effect! Use this bit of economics at your own risk.

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