Abstract
In the present work, we examined a phenomenon highly relevant in the educational field for assessing or judging performance, that is, the question how the second examiner’s marking is influenced by the evaluation of the first examiner. This phenomenon is known as anchoring in cognitive psychology. In general, in anchoring effects numeric information (i.e., the anchor) pulls estimations or judgments towards the anchor. One domain which is highly important in real life has been investigated only occasionally, that is, the marking of examinations. In three experiments, participants were asked to evaluate a written assignment. The mark (either good or bad) of a ficticious first examiner was used as the anchor. We found clear anchoring effects that were unaffected by feedback in a preceding task (positive, neutral, negative) or the expert status of the presumed first examiner. We discussed the problems related to this effect.
Highlights
Our decisions and evaluations are influenced by many social and cognitive things and even numbers
Participants who were confronted with the higher anchor (i.e., 3.0) gave higher marks than those who were confronted with the lower anchor (i.e., 2.0) producing a significant main effect of anchor in a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), F(1, 47) =
The result showed that the general task, including materials, procedure, and participants, produced clear anchoring effects
Summary
Our decisions and evaluations are influenced by many social and cognitive things and even numbers. Relevant and irrelevant information that is clearly uninformative for the required judgment can serve as an anchor. Englich (2008) used an irrelevant anchor She asked her participants to write down several numbers starting either with 10,150 or 29,150 before judging the price of a car. Such an irrelevant anchor had influences on the judgment as well. In the classic study of Tversky and Kahneman (1974), participants were required to estimate the percentage of African countries in the United Nations after spinning a wheel of fortune which determined the irrelevant anchor had influences on the estimation. Overall, anchoring effects are one of the most robust cognitive effects and, cognitive heuristics
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