Subliminal anchoring: Judgmental consequences and underlying mechanisms

Judgmental anchoring—the assimilation of a numeric estimate towards a previously considered standard—is an exceptionally ubiquitous eVect that inXuences human judgment in a variety of domains and paradigms. Three studies examined whether anchoring eVects even occur, if anchor values are presented subliminally, outside of judges’ awareness. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate such subliminal anchoring eVects: judges assimilated target estimates towards the subliminally presented anchor values. Study 3 further demonstrates that subliminal anchors produced a selective increase in the accessibility of anchor-consistent target knowledge. The implications of these Wndings for the ubiquity of judgmental anchoring, its diVerent underlying mechanisms, and comparative information processing are discussed.  2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.