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LIT-1064: Explaining the enigmatic anchoring effect: Mechanisms of selective accessibility

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StatusActive — read in full 2026-10-15 from a scan of the APA typeset article (pp. 437–446) posted in the readings directory of a University of Florida graduate course (Lyle Brenner, MAR 7588; bear.warrington.ufl.edu/brenner/mar7588/Papers/strack-mussweiler-jpsp97.pdf). That is a course's copy of the publisher's version, not an author's copy. Unpaywall, OpenAlex and Semantic Scholar list the article as closed. No copy was found on the authors' pages: London Business School's publication pages returned 404 or failed TLS, and the Internet Archive refused connections from this environment. Worth reading as the source of the selective accessibility model of anchoring. Three small studies (N = 32, 32 and 67) show that, with the anchor number held fixed, the anchor's effect depends on whether the knowledge used to compare applies to the later estimate. Applicability came from the dimension: the estimate was on the dimension compared, or on another one (Study 1). Representativeness came from the object: the estimate was about the same object, or about a very different one, where the effect turned to contrast (Study 2). With plausible anchors the comparison was slower and the later estimate faster (Study 3). For CLAIM-298 (whose psychological form is now CLAIM-315) it argues against numeric priming of a response, and supports the claim's psychological form for plausible anchors. It infers accessibility rather than measuring it; the direct lexical-decision test is Mussweiler and Strack 2000a, which the record does not hold and LIT-1067 failed to replicate. It does not rule out adjustment, and assigns adjustment to implausible anchors, which anchored at least as strongly. Its model holds that accessibility does not fix the direction of the judgment, so evaluation matters as well as retrieval. For QUESTION-109 it states, without testing, that hypothesis-consistent retrieval "improves the validity of comparative judgments but distorts subsequent judgments for which no specific hypothesis has been provided".
Tagscognition, social-science
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-877 — Strack & Mussweiler — Explaining the enigmatic anchoring effect
Cited as “source” byTHEORY-335 — Selective accessibility, the account that comparing a target with a plausible anchor makes anchor-consistent knowledge more accessible and that this knowledge carries anchoring, fits the moderations of the effect by applicability, representativeness and plausibility that Strack and Mussweiler found, but its accessibility step is inferred, not measured: Harris et al.'s repetition of the recognition test of it, four times by lexical decision and once by continuous identification, found nothing in five preregistered experiments, with tasks that also missed direct picture priming, THEORY-337 — In the comparative-question paradigm, judging whether a quantity is higher or lower than a high or low anchor pulls the later estimate of it toward the anchor, with large effects in five preregistered experiments of 128 people each, lasting through dozens of intervening word-recognition trials

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Strack, F. and Mussweiler, T. (1997). Explaining the enigmatic anchoring effect: Mechanisms of selective accessibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73(3), 437–446. DOI 10.1037/0022-3514.73.3.437

Key takeaways

Read in full (NOTE-877). In three small between- and within-subjects studies (N = 32, 32 and 67), the anchor’s effect on a later estimate depended on what the comparison task brought to mind, not on the number alone. With the anchor number held fixed, the effect was large when the estimate was on the dimension compared (Study 1). It reversed to contrast when the estimate was about a very different object (Study 2). After plausible anchors, the comparison took longer and the estimate came faster (Study 3). Accessibility is inferred from these moderations and from latencies. No study measures what knowledge was retrieved. The paper also keeps an adjustment-like route for implausible anchors, which anchored at least as strongly.

Why this is here

A20 named the selective-accessibility account as the established form of what the exchange was calling retrieval-mediated anchoring: “we wouldn’t be discovering retrieval-mediated anchoring from scratch.” It is the psychological ground of CLAIM-298 and the first reading for QUESTION-109.

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