Experience with the Product does not Affect the Anchoring Effect, but the Relevance of the Anchor Increases It

The anchoring effect belongs to one of the most extensively studied cognitive biases in judgment and has been shown to be robust in a variety of domains and conditions. This current study on 100 adolescents in Slovakia (aged 16 - 18, 62% females) investigates the role of the anchor relevance and the familiarity of products on one 's willingness-to-pay. The presence of the anchoring and adjustment heuristic has been confirmed in the Slovak cultural environment. The magnitude of the anchoring effect is not affected by previous experience with the product. However, the effect is higher when the anchors are relevant. By this, the effect was higher when the anchor was the price paid by other people, rather than when it was the result of obviously irrelevant mathematical operations.