DO ANCHORS MATTER MORE AFTER MAKING DIFFICULT DECISIONS?

Abstract

In the present paper, I examine the effect of choice difficulty on anchoring. Literature has shown that after a prolonged decision-making process, decision fatigue increases due to the increasing number of decisions made, which then increases the anchoring effect. I refine the notion further by manipulating the extent of decision fatigue with varying choice difficulties and hypothesize that increasing difficulty of decisions increases decision fatigue, hence increases the susceptibility to the influence of anchors. I conduct an experiment in which one group of subjects makes decisions among hard choices, whereas another group makes decisions among easy choices. Subjects in both groups then make decisions for the same anchoring questions. I find that, interestingly, subjects who first make hard (easy) decisions are more inclined to the influence of anchors when the subsequent decisions they have to make are easy (hard). I also discuss potential explanations for such an observation.