Describe the study in which German judges were asked to make a decision about appropriate sentences for wrong-doers. After reading about the case,
judges received either harsh or more lenient recommendations from either a journalist, a random roll of the dice, or a seasoned prosecutor. What did the study show? What key heuristic did it powerfully (and worryingly) illustrate? What reason can you give for why the recommendations were so powerful?
Answer:
These seasoned professionals received info about a court case, as well as sentencing recommendations that were either harsh or lenient. The bottom line is that the professionals were unable to resist using the recommendations as an anchor when they were attempting to arrive at a sentencing decision. That is, when the anchor was lenient, they arrived on average at a more lenient sentence, whereas the converse was true for harsh anchors. This was true even when the recommendation was utterly random (a roll of the dice). Recommendations of this sort exerted a powerful effect because, even though judges made adjustments to the anchor, the adjustments were not sufficient to "pull far enough away" from the anchor.
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