Does the first number you hear shape your final decision?

Anchoring bias is our tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information we encounter when making decisions. When you see a price crossed out showing $100 then $49, you anchor to $100 and perceive $49 as a bargain—even if $49 is the actual fair price. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky demonstrated this in the 1970s through experiments where random numbers influenced estimates of quantities. This bias affects negotiations, valuations, and judgments across domains. Even when we know anchors are arbitrary, they unconsciously influence our thinking.