Attractors: Incidental Values That Influence Forecasts of Change

This article examines whether forecasts of change are influenced by attractors, salient values in the direction of the considered change. When an attractor is relatively distal from (vs. proximal to) the base value from which change originates, it encourages forecasts of greater change. Participants showed this pattern when predicting which of two airfare changes was imminent (Study 1) and by how much gas prices (Study 2) or a stock's price (Study 3) would change. Attractors have this influence because they alter the way people translate even equivalent subjective interpretations of prospective changes into objective forecasts of change. In the context of a distal (vs. a proximal) attractor, forecasters thought more objective change was necessary to reflect the same subjective characterization of that change (Study 4). Having participants precommit to a subjective interpretation of an objective amount of change reduced a subsequently introduced attractor's influence on forecasting (Study 5). Following almost five decades of research showing many ways arbitrary values anchor judgments, we discuss how attractors reflect the first evidence that such values can also influence adjustment.