I don't know what the number you gave me, but I can be sure of one thing. Your answer must fluctuate around the number 654.38+ 10,000. If I ask you to guess whether the monthly sales volume of this magazine is above 6.5438+0 million copies or below 6.5438+0 million copies, and then ask you to estimate the specific sales volume, your answer will definitely fluctuate around 6.5438+0 million copies.
The premise determines the answer.
Why do different ways of asking questions get so different answers? Because people lack reasonable psychological expectations for things they don't know, any hint that appears at this time is equivalent to providing a reference for people, just like an anchor, limiting the scope of the answer to the vicinity of this hint.
This phenomenon is called "anchoring effect". The reason for this is that the previous hints activate the corresponding memories in the human brain. In an experiment, German psychologists Thomas and Fritz asked some volunteers to judge whether the annual average temperature in Germany was higher than 20℃ or lower than 20℃, while others asked the number 20 to become 5. Then. The researcher asked everyone to scan some words quickly. The researchers found that participants with a topic of 20℃ were more likely to recognize summer-related words, such as the sun and the beach; Participants whose topic is 5℃ are more likely to recognize words about winter, such as freezing and skiing. From this point of view, numbers of different sizes activate different concepts in people's memory, and these biased concepts become the basis for people to judge other problems. Therefore, the judgment made on this basis will also have certain deviation.
Professor Daniel of Massachusetts Institute of Technology also found through research that even some insignificant numbers will affect people's judgment. In his experiment, he first asked students to write down the last two digits of their student numbers on paper, and then asked them to estimate the prices of some goods. Students who found that there were two big numbers behind their student numbers gave a higher evaluation of 60%-120%.
When people estimate the value of a thing, there is actually no absolute value scale. Everything is relative, the key depends on how you position the base point. Basic point positioning is like an anchor. Fixed, the evaluation system will be fixed, and the value will be judged.
Commercial application of anchoring effect
In real life, "anchoring effect" can be seen everywhere, which affects our judgment of cases, the purchase of goods, negotiation strategies and so on.
We often see that some discounted goods will indicate the upper limit of the purchase quantity. No one can buy more than this. This is really a strange request. Discount itself is to sell more products. But why do merchants set a' purchase ceiling' for customers? If you are worried that customers will grab the goods and the merchants will be out of stock, then the seller can not discount or even raise the price of the goods. Actually. The seller is much smarter than we thought. The measure of restricting purchases is not to limit the quantity purchased by customers, but to increase the sales of goods. A supermarket once offered a discount on a canned food. On some days, the shelf reads "12 cans per person", and on other days, there is no such prompt. The results show that the average number of cans consumers will buy when the purchase is restricted is twice that when the purchase is not restricted. It can be seen that purchase restriction is a very effective marketing strategy. This is because the seller will first consider the actual purchase amount of the customer when setting the upper limit, which will make the upper limit higher than this figure. Therefore, this upper limit not only does not restrict the sales of goods, but also plays an anchoring role, making customers tend to approach this upper limit when deciding the purchase quantity.
Merchants also need to use the "anchoring effect" to launch new products. For example. A new high-end cosmetic comes out. If it is placed in an inconspicuous position with low-priced goods, even if the quality is high, the high price it sets will not be accepted by consumers. On the contrary, if you put it together with other famous brands of cosmetics. Its high price is easily accepted.
The "anchoring effect" in the negotiations can also be seen at any time. Many people think that. In the negotiation, it is best to let the other party make an offer first, so as to estimate the bottom price of the other party and gain a more favorable position in the negotiation. But in fact. Let the other party make an offer first, and this price will become an anchor in the negotiation. Even if you try to adjust again, it is difficult to get rid of the influence of this initial price. The same is true of bargaining when shopping.
Anchoring effect can be seen everywhere in life.
The "anchoring effect" is very common in life, and everyone will be "anchored" intentionally or unintentionally. For example, there are 50 students in a class and 3 students fail the exam. If you fail, you will be very sad. But if 30 students fail, you will probably feel indifferent, because there are 29 people with you, not two. This phenomenon is really wonderful. Whether three people in the class failed. Still 30 people failed, and it didn't change your grades. But in two different frames of reference, your psychological feelings are completely different, which is why people make different comments on the same thing because of the different "anchoring" benchmarks.
Even judges who claim to be fair and just are inevitably influenced by the "anchoring effect". Researchers from the University of Cologne in Germany invited 19 judges of the German Criminal Court to be randomly divided into two groups, so that they could read the same case, but the prosecution put forward different punishment requirements for the judges: one group of judges saw that the punishment requirement was imprisonment for two months, which was too light for the defendant's crime; Another group of judges was sentenced to 34 months in prison, which was too harsh. Although the judges all think that the prosecution's sentencing requirements are unreasonable. However, they were still influenced by the prosecution when making a judgment. In the group where the prosecution asked for 34 months' imprisonment, the average imprisonment time determined by the judge was 28 months. 7 months; In the group where the prosecution asked for 2 months' imprisonment, the average imprisonment time judged by the judge was only 18. 78 months. Follow-up research found that whether the judge is experienced or not. They will all be affected by the prosecution's allegations. This is the "anchoring effect" in the play, which will not only affect the judge's judgment, but also affect the defense lawyer's judgment and his request.
It can be seen that if we can't understand the influence of "anchoring effect", we will sometimes be in a passive position in the negotiation of legal contracts, and even accidentally damage our rights and interests. For example, factories and chemical enterprises often face the problem of compensation for personal injury incidents, and the judgments in such cases are sometimes very harsh. Therefore, these units lobbied all parties to set a compensation ceiling for such judgments. People's first impression will think that this is absolutely beneficial to these defendants, but it is not. Although setting the upper limit can rule out all heavy sentences, the "anchoring effect" will also make the judge make a judgment closer to the upper limit of compensation for the originally light compensation. Therefore ... for those units with frequent accidents, this measure is unfavorable.
The "anchoring effect" is so common that if we learn to use it, we can make others do what we want more easily. So, next time you want to ask your parents for 5 yuan money, do you want 5 yuan or 10 yuan directly?