Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Anchoring bias describes the tendency to base an estimate around a previously given value, the anchor. Herein, a cohortof 124 medical providers and trainees, from medical students to practicing physicians, were shown to display anchoringbias when faced with medical scenarios including an anchoring value in the form of a prior assessment. Anchoringbias did not vary significantly with participants level of training although tolerance to risk did. However, they showedincreased reliance on the anchor when its source had greater expertise. Analyses showed no correlation between anchoringsusceptibility and participants preference for Rationality or Intuition as measured by the Decision Styles Scale. The resultssuggest that medical decisions can be vulnerable to anchoring effects, particularly when the anchor is sourced from anauthoritative source. Given that authoritative sources should be more knowledgeable, this is reasonable, but will hold trueregardless of the accuracy of the anchoring value.