How can guessing the age of Mahatma Gandhi help us to better understand how our mind works?
Subject: Anchoring - Death of Gandhi Study Question
Event: Death of Mahatma Gandhi, 1948
On the evening of January 30, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was killed when an assassin fired three bullets into his chest at close range. You have probably heard of Gandhi, and you might even have known that he was assassinated. But, do you know how old he was when he died?
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This question was the subject of an ingenious psychological study conducted in 1997. It’s a study that helps us to better understand human thinking and the connection between our rational thinking and our intuitive thinking. It’s also a study that reveals that our thinking and our decisions are not as independent as we think they are; instead, they can be influenced by outside forces that we often are not aware of.
One of those forces is numbers. For example, when you are shopping for a new refrigerator, do you pay attention to the “recommended retail price”? Similarly, when a teacher is grading a student’s essay, do you think she is influenced by the student’s previous grades on essays or by the essay she graded previously? Psychologists call this anchoring: the mental process by which we make estimates by latching on to reference points for comparison.
In the Gandhi study, 60 German university students were asked how old the
Indian leader was when he died. For 30 of the students, the question was preceded by the question “Was Gandhi older or younger than 9 years old when he died.” The other 30 were first asked, “Was Gandhi older or younger than 140 years old.” Logically speaking, neither number -- 9 or 140 -- seemed a likely hint to his actual age, yet the results of the study showed that in both cases they influenced the students’ estimates: the students who were asked “Was Gandhi older or younger than 9 years old,” guessed an average age of 50 years old; the other group which was asked “Was Gandhi older or younger than 140 years old,” guessed an average of 67 years old (1).
At this point, you probably want to know how old Gandhi actually was: he was 78 years old.
The message of anchoring is that our mind works by making comparisons, whether or not we are aware of those comparisons. To avoid this cognitive bias, be alert to how you’re comparing things, and be especially alert to how an initial piece of information, such as a number can influence your thinking. For example, if you are negotiating a salary or buying a new car, pay attention to the first offers presented; also, realize the advantage of being the one who offers the first number.
Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason: What is anchoring, and how does it influence us?
Challenge - Buyer Beware: You can bet that companies know how to employ anchoring to manipulate consumers into paying more for products. Do some research on how marketers use anchoring to prey on the weak minds of consumers. Write a brief PSA that explains the trickery of anchors and helps people avoid it to save money.
ALSO ON THIS DAY:
-January 30, 1866: Today is the birthday of American author and humorist Frank Galett Burgess. Although he is well known for his four-line nonsense poem “The Purple Cow,” he should also be remembered for coining the word “blurb,” the short promotional descriptions or reviews by which consumers judge books by their front or back covers. In 1906, Burgess was promoting his latest book Are You a Bromide? at a trade association dinner. To capture the attention of potential buyers, he created a dust jacket with the book’s title and a brief description. To make the book more eye-catching, he added a picture of a fictitious woman he called Miss Belinda Blurb. The name stuck as a way of describing the promotional text that publishers place on book jackets.
-January 30, 1929: Today is the birthday of cognitive psychologist Roger Newland Shepard, born in 1929. He invented the famous optical illusion called the Shepherds Tables.
Sources:
1-IB Psychology. Key Study: Gandhi and the Anchoring Effect
Strack & Mussweiler, 1997. https://www.themantic-education.com/ibpsych/2020/03/10/key-study-ghandi-and-the-anchoring-effect/
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