In this episode we are going to talk about how random dice rolls can influence judges to give people longer jail sentences, how so-called experts are massively influenced by completely random numbers – even when they explicitly deny it – and how you can better understand this crazy phenomenon – the Anchoring Effect.

As Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman puts it in his book Thinking Fast and Slow: 
"The main moral of priming research is that our thoughts and our behavior are influenced, much more than we know or want, by the environment of the moment."

Arbitrary numbers and anchors can have huge implications for your decisions without you even realizing it and this all operates at a subconscious level beyond your conscious experience.
 
This episode is going to focus on drilling down and understanding a specific cognitive bias – a mental model – to help you start building a toolkit of mental models that will enable you to better understand reality.
 
Anchoring bias – along with Priming and Framing, which we have covered in previous episodes – are all cognitive biases that you want to know, understand, and be aware of – so that you can add them to your mental toolbox and make better decisions.

Thank you so much for listening!

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SHOW NOTES, LINKS, & RESEARCH

The specific research studies we cite are located within the book Thinking Fast & Slow.

• [Book] Thinking, Fast and Slow Paperback by Daniel Kahneman (see here).

• [Book] Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition by Michael J. Mauboussin (see here).

• [Science of Success Episode] How This Simple Change In Wording Made 50% of Doctors Choose a More Dangerous Medical Procedure (see here).

• [Science of Success Episode] This Powerful Factor Controls Your Decisions And 86% of People Have No Idea It Exists (see here).

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT