Anchoring: Underlying Mechanisms and the Opportuneness of Using the

Technique in Negotiation

Contents table

1. Introduction.................................................................................................................................1
2. Anchoring: notion and robustness.......................................................................................2
3. The multiplicity of mechanisms underlying anchoring....................................................3
3.1. Self-generated anchors...........................................................................................................3
3.2. Externally generated anchors.................................................................................................4
4. The manifestation of anchoring in negotiation..................................................................6
5. The opportuneness of anchoring in negotiation...............................................................7
5.1. When you should not anchor: the key role of information..................................................7
5.2. The variance of benefits resulting from the nature of negotiation.....................................8
(i) Anchoring carefully in distributive negotiation.....................................................................8
(ii) Anchoring as a defensive mechanism in integrative negotiation...................................11
6. Conclusion................................................................................................................................13
7. Bibliography.............................................................................................................................15
 1. Introduction

When confronted with an uncertain judgmental task, individuals use heuristics to

ease their thinking process1. Irrespective of the positive effects heuristics have, they
tend to create cognitive biases that affect the rationality of one’s decision. One of
these cognitive biases is called anchoring.

Anchoring is known in decision-making theory as the bias causing an individual to

orientate her final judgment towards a random value. The first mention of anchoring
did not include an in-depth analysis of its mechanisms, but it was sufficient to
generate interest from academicians. The literature shows little divergence on the
robust effects of this bias. However, there has been a long-standing debate over the
cognitive mechanisms underlying the anchoring process, mainly focusing on two
theories: the insufficient adjustment 2 and the selective accessibility3. Explaining those
mechanisms is essential to understanding how anchoring works, and how it could be
used in negotiation.

As negotiation is often imbued with uncertainty, anchoring and other cognitive

biases come into play in its process. Anchors can take many forms, but research
mainly focused on one: the first offer. As it appears, a negotiator could reap
significant benefits from making the first offer.

This paper mainly aims at responding to one fundamental question: should

negotiators engage in anchoring during the negotiation process?

To answer this, it is essential to define the general process of anchoring (2), and
explicit the different mechanisms at play when an individual is subject to it (3). After
clearing the notion, this paper will explain how anchoring is manifested in negotiation
(4). This theoretical exposé will lead to the discussion of whether anchoring is
opportune for the negotiator (5). This part will focus on the key role of information in
the anchoring strategy in negotiation generally, to then distinguish the effects of the
strategy in distributive negotiation on one side and integrative negotiation on the
other.

1
D. Kahneman, A. Tversky, ‘Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases’ [1974] 185 Science 1124.
2
Ibid. 1128.
3
Fritz Strack, Thomas Mussweiler, ‘Explaining the Enigmatic Anchoring Effect: Mechanisms of Selective
Accessibility’ [1997] 73 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 437

1
 2. Anchoring: notion and robustness

Anchoring is a “robust cognitive phenomenon” that is linked to an uncertain

environment, first evidenced in the “Wheel of Fortune” experiment 4. In the process of
computing how many countries there were in the UN, individuals were shown a
number randomly generated by a wheel. Confronting two groups facing different
anchors led to a clear conclusion: individuals were influenced by those random
numbers.

Uncertainty is a necessary condition for one to use judgmental heuristics 5.

According to Kahneman's dual-process theory, when facing uncertainty, individuals
tend to rely on system 1, automated and implicit, rather than system 2, slow and
effortful6. Individuals cannot control system 1, which makes the anchoring bias
pervasive.

The robustness of anchoring has been proved in numerous past experiments.

The bias is present in a multiplicity of settings, from laboratories to real life, and with
different subjects. Students coming from different majors are equally affected 7, and
so are experienced judges when deciding on a case 8. The anchoring effect is not
affected by time, incentives, or explicit instructions not to get anchored 9. However,
there has been more debate over the impact of the anchor’s plausibility the
robustness of the anchoring effect.

While Chapman et al. argue that an uninformative anchor still generates a strong
anchoring effect10, relying on the number of doctors in a phonebook’s influence on
the estimation of the UN countries’ number11, Turner et al. showed that when
individuals with the same prior knowledge are given either relevant or irrelevant

4
Op. cit. 2.
5
Op. cit. 1.
6
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow (Penguin 2012).
7
David D. Loschelder and others, ‘The First-Mover Disadvantage: The Folly of Revealing Compatible
Preferences’ [2014] 25 Psychological Science 954.
8
B. Englich and others, ‘Playing Dice With Criminal Sentences: The Influence of Irrelevant Anchors on Experts’
Judicial Decision Making’ [2006] 32 PSPB 188.
9
Adam D. Galinsky and others, ‘Regulatory Focus at the Bargaining Table: Promoting Distributive and
Integrative Success’ [2005] 31 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 1087, 1096.
10
Gretchen B. Chapman, Eric J. Johnson, ‘Anchoring, Activation and the Construction of Values’ [1999] 79
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 115, 118.
11
T. D. Wilson and others, ‘A new look at anchoring effects: Basic anchoring and its antecedents’ [1996] 4
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 387.

2
anchors, the anchoring effect is weaker in the second context 12. The latter experiment
provided a clear model to quantitatively estimate the anchoring effect, as opposed to
the former, therefore providing stronger evidence that anchoring’s intensity varies
with the anchor’s plausibility.

Despite the debate aforementioned, there is no doubt about anchoring's

pervasiveness. One thing could explain the difference in effect of irrelevant and
relevant anchors: a difference in the cognitive mechanisms behind each anchoring
effect.

3. The multiplicity of mechanisms underlying anchoring

Contrary to anchoring’s robustness, the question of the mechanisms underlying

anchoring is debated. Relying on past literature, we identified different mechanisms
for two types of anchors: self-generated and externally generated.

3.1. Self-generated anchors

Self-generated anchors are implausible in nature. An anchor orientates the

answer towards it, it does not constitute the answer. If the self-generated anchor was
plausible, it would then constitute the answer which would exclude it from the
category. There is one specific mechanism that focuses on those specific anchors:
the “insufficient adjustment”13.

In computing the asked value, the individual is trying to estimate how much he
needs to adjust the false value so that it can turn into an acceptable one. After the
first adjustment, the individual will assess whether the value could be correct and if it
cannot, he will repeat the process over again 14. As this thinking process happens in
an uncertain environment, the individual will stop adjusting when he reaches the
border of the "plausible area". If we consider a line in which the middle is the correct
value, the final computed value will be on the side of the spectrum where the anchor
stands. This orientation towards the anchor side is caused by insufficient adjustment.
To illustrate this, we can consider a driver that goes from the highway to the city
centre. In that direction, his speed will be higher than the city limit whereas in the
12
Brandon M. Turner, Dan R. Schley, ‘The anchor integration model: A descriptive model of anchoring effects’,
[2016] 90 Cognitive Psychology 1, 19.
13
Nicholas Epley, Thomas Gilovich, ‘The Anchoring-and-Adjustment Heuristic.’ [2006] 17 Psychological science
311, 312.
14
Op. cit. 13., 316.

3
other direction it will be lower. The driver’s speed is influenced by the place where he
comes from15.

This effortful process can be linked with Kahneman's dual-process theory, and the
two systems mentioned above. When trying to compute a value, the individual first
relies on the known value, the anchor, and then makes the effort to adjust it towards
a range of what he considers "plausible values". In doing so, one engages in an
effortful process of thinking that involves system 2 16. This intervention of the explicit
system causes anchoring to be stronger when the individual is less likely to engage
in deep analysis. The more knowledge the individual has about a particular topic, the
more he will be able to estimate the correct value which reduces the range of
plausible values. When anchoring depends on the insufficient adjustment of a value,
people’s characteristics play an important role in the anchoring effect’s intensity 17.

Insufficient adjustment underlies the anchoring effect only when anchors are self-
generated, which restricts its usefulness to implausible anchors. Another mechanism
is therefore needed to explain anchoring with plausible anchors.

3.2. Externally generated anchors

Externally generated anchors can be either plausible or implausible. The main

mechanism behind anchoring in this context is referred to as “selective
accessibility”18, “activation”19 or even “priming”20.

Contrary to the previous mechanism, priming relies mostly on system 1. The

individual, when confronted with a piece of information, will search for data relevant
to the anchor. It is that process of retrieving relevant information that causes one to
fall into the bias of anchoring. In that sense, anchoring relates to another well-known
bias called the "confirmation trap". Individuals tend to look for information that will
confirm a primary idea, or in the case of anchoring a piece of information. It is
because individuals consider the anchor as a candidate for the right answer that their
brains select the information most relevant to the anchor. As an example, when

15
Op. cit. 6. 121.
16
Ibid.
17
Op. cit. 15.
18
Op. cit. 3.
19
Op. cit. 10.
20
Op. cit. 6., 121.

4
judges are provided with a high number to determine a sentence, they will focus on
negative aspects such as violence, increasing the likelihood of their verdict being
harsh21.

System 1 plays a key role in that it provides information that system 2 will work
with. System 1 gathers the data, and System 2 conducts the reasoning relying on this
data. Contrary to insufficient adjustment, selective accessibility mostly affects system
2 and people who engage in more thorough reasoning. As they do so, they gather
even more information that is relevant to the anchor, which in turn increases the
influence of the anchor on the final value. This explains why sad people are more
susceptible to anchoring22. Selective accessibility appears as a natural tendency of
individuals that system 2’s operation cannot stop. Prompting subjects not to pay
attention to anchor-related features is then effectless 23, as the individual will
unconsciously rely on them regardless of the instruction.

For selective accessibility to play, the anchor needs to bear certain

characteristics: applicability and representativeness 24. For the individual to gather
information linked to the anchor, it needs to apply to the question at hand. As for the
representativeness, it will only determine the role the anchor will play in the process.
If the value is unrelated to the answer, the individual will gather information opposed
to it. On the contrary, he will gather information related to it, which is the classic
anchoring effect. The wheel of fortune experiment and its robust effect seems to
question these requirements. There is no doubt about the randomness of the values,
generated by chance. Still, individuals were anchored by the values. Some could say
that the anchors were sufficiently plausible in that they could realistically be a number
of countries. The outcome might have been different if the values on the wheel were
negative, or over a thousand.

Finally, we can say that the selective accessibility mechanism explains most of
the anchoring effects related to external anchors but not all. It does not address
externally generated implausible anchors. New theories were recently developed,

21
Op. cit. 8.
22
Galen V. Bodenhausen and others, ‘Sadness and susceptibility to judgmental bias: The Case of Anchoring’
[2000] 11 Psychological Science 320
23
Op. cit. 10.
24
Op. cit. 3.

5
such as the “scale distortion theory”25, that could fill in the gap left by the most
developed mechanisms. However, these will not be further exposed in this paper.

Anchoring is a strong cognitive bias in decision-making processes, and

negotiation does not escape its pervasiveness.

4. The manifestation of anchoring in negotiation

Anchoring occurs in an uncertain environment. Negotiation is itself characterised

by a high level of uncertainty whether about the counterparty’s or one’s own interests
and alternatives. This explains why a negotiator cannot escape the anchoring effect.

There are two types of anchors in negotiation: the self-generated and the
externally generated26. The former is the party’s own information such as the
reservation value (RV), the lowest acceptable value for a deal, and the target value.
The target value anchors the process in guiding it and setting what is an acceptable
outcome. There is evidence that goals act as a significant anchor, negotiators with
higher goals performing better and setting their future goals higher than others 27. The
latter is the counterparty’s first offer. Extensive research exists on first offers’
influence on the negotiation outcome, showing its role as an anchor for the process 28.

This paper will focus on first offers as anchors for more than 50% of the variance
of negotiation outcomes was found to result from first offers’ manipulation 29. For the
rest of this paper, anchoring will designate the strategy of starting with high demands
and little willingness to concede.

Albeit similar to anchoring in decision-making, the process in negotiation bears

differences. Negotiation does not have a single right answer and is heavily influenced
by parties’ motivations. From this inherent subjectivity stems negotiators’ concession-
aversion30. They are less likely to yield if they feel the proposal is unfair, or if it is
framed as more of a request than an offer. These “motivational forces”31 reduce
25
Op. cit. 12., 5.
26
Johann M. Majer and others, 'Open to Offers, but Resisting Requests: How the Framing Affects Motivation
and Negotiated Outcomes' [2020] 119 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 582.
27
Max H. Bazerman, Margaret A. Neale, Negotiating Rationally (Free Press 1994) 35.
28
Op. cit. 26.
29
Dirk Van Poucke, Marc Buelens, ‘Predicting the outcome of a two-party price negotiation: Contribution of
reservation price, aspiration price and opening offer’ [2002] 23 Journal of Economic Psychology 67.
30
Op. cit. 27., 584.
31
Ibid. 595.

6
anchoring’s pervasiveness in negotiation and opens the question of whether
anchoring is an opportune strategy.

5. The opportuneness of anchoring in negotiation

Generally, information plays a key role in determining whether one should anchor.
If information is sufficient, the opportuneness of anchoring will depend on the type of
negotiation.

5.1. The key role of information in anchoring

Information is key to determining whether to anchor in two respects. First, its

presence on the counterparty's side impacts the usefulness of anchoring. Second, its
absence on the initiator’s side renders anchoring hazardous.

Anchoring occurs in uncertainty which closely connects to information. When

information load increases, heuristics are less likely to come into play which in turn
makes anchoring less efficient in negotiation. As the counterparty can determine
what is or not a good outcome, he will not be unreasonably influenced by the anchor.
Empirical studies confirmed that anchoring works better on uninformed parties than
on informed ones32, and that anchoring’s efficiency diminishes when facing an
experienced negotiator rather than a beginner 33. Additionally, Orr advised that one
should focus on the objective aspects of the case to defend himself against
anchoring34. Those “objective aspects” echo to the information relevant to the issue
discussed, on which the negotiator needs to focus to escape biases. This proves that
when the counterparty is sufficiently informed, anchoring’s apparent benefits, which
will be exposed shortly, disappear.

Conversely, anchoring should not be used when the negotiator is not informed
enough on the central issue discussed. There are two main reasons why it is so.
Firstly, a lack of information on the negotiation’s object could lead the first offeror
to get a worse deal than what he could have hoped for. Bazerman’s gem example
clearly illustrates this. The buyer, not knowing what the gem is worth, offers a price

32
Robert M. Liebert, William P. Smith, J. H. Hill, ‘The Effects of Information and Magnitude of Initial Offer on
Interpersonal Negotiation’ [1968] 4 Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 431.
33
Michael J. Cotter, James A. Henley Jr., ‘First-Offer Disadvantage in Zero-Sum Game Negotiation Outcomes’
[2008] 15 Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing 25.
34
Dan Orr, Chris Guthrie, ‘'Anchoring, Information, Expertise, and Negotiation: New Insights from Meta-
Analysis' [2006] 21 Ohio St J on Disp Resol 597.

7
that the seller accepts directly35. Such a sudden acceptance must mean that the price
offered was above the value of the gem. To anchor, the negotiator needs to be able
to determine what a good anchor is 36. If he is not, then anchoring can be at best
useless and at worst detrimental as it worsens the deal for him. Thomas Edison,
when selling his invention, waited for the potential buyer to make an offer and in
doing that obtained much more than what he had expected, to the detriment of the
offeror37.
Secondly, waiting for the counterparty to make the first offer can be the ideal
strategy in that it allows the negotiator to obtain more information on their interests
and alternatives. In a context of strong information asymmetry, the first offeror will
signal his position to the advantage of the other, as was demonstrated by Maaravi et
al with the Pawn stars example38. Albeit only focusing on distributive negotiation, this
conclusion extends a fortiori to integrative negotiation for the benefits of anchoring
are already lower in the latter. This will be further explored in the remainder of this
paper.

Anchoring is "context-dependent"39 and should not be used without sufficient

information on the negotiation’s object and parties. Even if the negotiator fulfils this
requirement, anchoring might not always be the best strategy.

5.2. Different benefits for different natures of negotiation

The potential for value creation in integrative negotiation differentiates it from the
distributive process. It causes anchoring to be a better strategy in the latter, if done
carefully, than in the former.

(i) Anchoring carefully in distributive negotiation

Distributive negotiation is a process where there is no potential for value

creation, where parties are to determine the distribution of a certain value.

35
Max. H Bazerman, ‘Negotiator Judgment: A Critical Look at the Rationality Assumption’ [1983] 27 The
American Behavioral Scientist 211, 223.
36
Op. cit. 27.
37
James K. Sebenius, David A. Lax, 3-D negotiation: powerful tools to change the game in your most important
deals (Harvard Business Review Press 2006), 187.
38
Yossi Maaravi, Aharon Levy, ‘When your anchor sinks your boat: Information asymmetry in distributive
negotiations and the disadvantage of making the first offer’ [2017] 12 Judgment and Decision Making 420.
39
Ibid. 426.

8
 Anchoring generates benefits in “single-issue negotiation” 40 and is a strategy fit
for negotiators who intend to claim value rather than create some 41. The
aforementioned benefits are straightforward. By making an extreme first offer, the
negotiator shifts the zone of possible agreement (ZOPA) towards his side. If the
counterparty does not have information on the first offeror's RV it will take the anchor
as the RV and base its future counteroffers on this. The more extreme the anchor is,
“the better is the prospect that what one ‘really’ wants will be considered a
compromise”42. These effects are certain. A meta-analysis confirmed them, notably
considering experiments on buyer/seller relationship or even on car insurance
matters43. Apart from obtaining better outcomes, the will to protect oneself from
another competitive negotiator could make anchoring a sound strategy. As its
benefits are well-known, most individuals are likely to adopt anchoring to the
detriment of the negotiator that does not.

However, anchoring is not without risk and the negotiator needs to consider
multiple factors before proceeding to it.
Firstly, extreme first offers can lead to a failure of the negotiation. If the ZOPA
is non-null, it means that negotiation could generate a better outcome than a no-deal
for both parties. But if the anchor appears offensive, the counterparty could feel
offended which could, according to Schweinsberg 44, affect negotiation in two ways. If
the counterparty is a soft bargainer, he will just leave the table and there will be no
deal. If the counterparty is a hard bargainer, he will haggle harder than initially
decided which would lead to what Bazerman calls an extreme escalation of
commitment45. This could lead to either a longer negotiation period before an
agreement or even an absence of deal. Extreme anchors can be a significant
backlash for negotiators. They come to the table because the outcome could be
better than their best alternative but by making an extreme offer to better their
outcome even more, they can simply lose any deal perspective.
Secondly, anchoring can have detrimental economic impacts on the parties.
Costs are proportionally increased with the time spent negotiating, which is even
40
Op. cit. 6, 127.
41
Op. cit. 38.
42
Kissinger in ibid, 189.
43
Op. cit. 35.
44
Martin Schweinsberg and others, ‘Starting high and ending with nothing: The role of anchors and power in
negotiations’ [2012] 48 Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 226.
45
Op. cit. 36.

9
higher when parties are haggling hardly. Conversely, the initiator suffers an important
loss when no deals are reached. Directly, potential profit is lost in the absence of
deal. Indirectly, a reputation effect will affect future deals for individuals are reluctant
to negotiate with a renowned “hard bargainer”. An indirect economic impact also
comes from the psychological effect on the counterparty 46. The offensiveness of
hard-bargaining will decrease the likelihood that he will engage in negotiation with the
initiator again, ruining any potential for a future relationship. Anchoring is good for
short-term benefits but less so for long-term ones.
Thirdly, anchoring can have a detrimental effect on the initiator independently
of the counterparty. A negotiator’s satisfaction depends on the economic outcome
but also on a psychological effect. By anchoring, the negotiator undoubtedly feels
economic satisfaction as long as he avoids the caveat mentioned above. However,
anchoring has been proven to generate anxiety in the negotiator because of the
uncertainty of its effects47. The efficiency of anchoring depends highly on how the
counterparty’s behaviour and his information, which is something that the initiator
cannot control. Anchoring’s opportuneness depends on the main determinant of a
negotiator’s satisfaction. If the psychological aspect prevails, anchoring is not ideal.

From all this, two recommendations can be drawn.

If the individual is in a competition setting, anchoring can be the best course of
action. This however is true only if the individual faces a purely distributive issue,
where relationship or reputation does not matter to the initiator. It should be
underlined that anchoring in this context would be even stronger with an extreme
offer made to an individual that is inexperienced, or lacks knowledge, for he would
not be able to tell what a reasonable anchor is. However, uncertainty is high when it
comes to predicting the counterparty’s range of information. For this reason, the
negotiator should anchor reasonably no matter what his predictions of the other’s
knowledge are.
However, there are alternatives to anchoring that preserve the good outcome
and decrease the risks above mentioned. These are called “soft-anchors” and are
mainly of two types: flexible extreme offers, and non-offer offers 48. The former allows

46
Yossi Maaravi, Asya Pazy, Yoav Ganzach, ‘Winning a battle but losing the war: On the drawbacks of using
anchoring tactic in distributive negotiations’ [2014] 9 Judgment and Decision Making 548.
47
Ashleigh Shelby Rosette, Shirli Kopelman, JeAnna Lanza Abbott ‘Good Grief! Anxiety Sours the Economic
Benefits of First Offers.’ [2013] 23 Group decision and negotiation 629.
48
Op. cit. 38, 191.

10
the initiator to shift the ZOPA without offence to the counterparty by allowing him to
convince the offeror of the unfairness of his proposal. The latter allows the offeror to
reveal the same information as with a classic anchor, without risking appearing as a
hard bargainer, for it is not formulated as an offer.

In conclusion, we advise anchoring only for those negotiators who view the
process as a 1-shot game and are aware of the risks of the strategy. Overall, using
soft-anchors appears to be a better solution for it provides similar results while
establishing a more collaborative approach that brings distributive negotiation closer
to integrative negotiation.

(ii) Anchoring as a defensive mechanism in integrative negotiation

Integrative negotiation is characterised by the scope it offers for value creation for
both parties. It strays away from the fixed-pie bias 49 and the assumption that
negotiators’ interests are always contradictory.

In that context, anchoring faces the multiplicity of issues composing the

negotiation. First offers can be more complex and tackle multiple issues, which
questions whether anchoring could be efficient. Additionally, the stance taken by
negotiators to be either competitive or collaborative considerably affects the direction
of the negotiation and the opportuneness of anchoring. Therefore, whether one
should anchor or not depends on the type of negotiator one faces, and his certainty.

Firstly, negotiators could be in a collaborative setting where each knows of the

other’s willingness to cooperate and create value. Here, parties' interests are not
opposed and there is room for a deal that satisfies both, contrary to what is conveyed
by the fixed-pie bias. The best course of action would be to “focus on interests, not
position”50 to generate a mutually beneficial agreement and avoid impasses. Ury et
al. illustrate this well with the Egyptian-Israeli conflict 51. It is because each party
revealed their respective interests for sovereignty and security that an agreement
was signed, despite their initially irreconcilable positions. Compared to anchoring,
this strategy stays the best course of action as it increases the chances to conclude a
deal, which is what both parties want, while also bettering what that deal can be.

49
Op. cit. 36.
50
Fisher, Ury, Patton, Getting to Yes: negotiating an agreement without giving in (Random House 2012), 42.
51
Ibid. 43.

11
Individuals reach a better outcome when they both behave rationally and do not try to
manipulate each other. Anchoring “prevents people from negotiating rationally” 52, and
not using it allows for trust at the negotiation table and a process more efficient than
positional bargaining. Ritov’s experiment supported this in that it found that better
outcomes were reached when first offers are more attractive to the counterpart 53. It
reflects the idea that reconciling interests is better for both parties compared to when
the focus is only on one side’s interests, which is the case with anchoring.
Then, the recommendation is to make the first offer, but not aggressively. It needs
to signal a collaborative intention. It acts as a sort of anchor to the process, and not
the outcome, for it sets an environment prone to value-creation. This was proven to
work with “prosocial” counterparts 54, that are willing to cooperate, despite the failure
of a past experiment to verify this “signal” function hypothesis 55. The past failure was
probably explained by the restrictive setting of the experiment. It did not leave room
for personality expression which is essential to signalling a collaborative mind.

Collaborative mindset is thus central to the benefits of not anchoring in integrative

negotiation. This questions what happens when the individual is competitive.

When the counterparty is competitive, making a first offer that signals

collaboration could be detrimental to the negotiator. The recipient could take
advantage of the information revealed on interests to direct the discussion toward his
own interests. Loschelder's experiment brought evidence of this process 56. In that
situation, the negotiator faces two options.
He could try to reorientate the negotiation towards collaboration by applying
principled negotiation to the process 57. The negotiator’s strategy would here be to
convince its adversary that there is scope for a mutually beneficial agreement.
However, there is a risk that the counterparty will try to anchor by making an extreme
first offer. It is known that debiasing is extremely difficult, despite one’s awareness 58,
because of anchoring’s robustness. This means the negotiator would need to
52
Op. cit. 28, 35.
53
Ilina Ritov, ‘Anchoring in Simulated Competitive Market Negotiation’ [1996] 67 Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes 16.
54
David D. Loschelder and others, ‘The Information-Anchoring Model of First Offers: When Moving First Helps
Versus Hurts Negotiators’ [2016] 101 Journal of Applied Psychology 995.
55
Simone Moran, Ilana Ritov, ‘Initial Perceptions in Negotiations: Evaluation and Response to ‘Logrolling’
Offers’ [2002] 15 Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 101.
56
Op. cit. 55.
57
Op. cit. 51, 132.
58
Op. cit. 6, 410.

12
arbitrate between the good outcome of principled negotiation if his strategy works
and the risk of bad outcome if it fails.
If the bad overweighs the good, there is one solution left: be the harder bargainer
and anchor. The negotiator will generate multiple anchors targeting each of the
issues composing the main problem and aggregate them in what is called a
“logrolling offer”59. As both parties are “proself”, anchoring will work as it would in
distributive issues60 . In this context, we would say that anchoring is to be used as a
defensive rather than offensive tactic. Its outcome will not be as good as with
principled negotiation but again, this ideal outcome might never be reachable.

All these recommendations rely on the negotiator’s knowledge of the

counterparty’s orientation which is sometimes null. In that case, the negotiator has
three options. First, he could let the other reveal itself by letting him make the first
offer, but he risks being anchored. Second, if he has enough information on the
other’s alternative, he could secure himself and anchor. Here, he would apply the
same strategy as when knowing the counterparty is competitive. Finally, he could
adopt a unique solution that resembles soft anchors. By using “hypothetical
proposals”61, the negotiator could use propositions to question his counterparty’s
intentions without affecting the potential for value creation if the other party opens to
it.

In conclusion, anchoring is not the best strategy in integrative bargaining as it

does not allow for value creation. However, it allows risk-averse individuals to protect
themselves from counterparts' eventual aggressive anchoring techniques.

6. Conclusion

Diverse mechanisms underlie the anchoring effect, depending on the type of

anchor concerned. Insufficient adjustment explains the influence of self-generated
anchors whereas selective accessibility targets externally generated anchors. No
matter the mechanism involved, anchoring is a robust decision-making bias and
negotiation does not escape it. A negotiator could use this bias to his advantage on
the condition that he has enough information on the issue and his counterparty.

59
Op. cit. 56
60
Op. cit. 57.
61
Diyan Grigorov, A. Francisca Henkemans, ‘Hypothetical Questions as Strategic Devices in Negotiation’, [2019]
35 NEGOT. J. 363.

13
Anchoring should be used carefully in distributive negotiation to avoid seriously
detrimental consequences. In integrative bargaining, the negotiator should only use
anchoring as a defensive tool when facing a non-cooperative counterpart for it is not
the most beneficial strategy. Anchoring’s efficiency is well established but its
supremacy could disappear to the profit of new tools such as soft anchors or
hypothetical proposals.

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