Anchoring as a structural bias of deliberation

Sebastian Till Braun; Soroush Rafiee Rad; Olivier Roy

doi:10.1007/s10670-024-00814-7

Anchoring as a structural bias of deliberation

Sebastian Till Braun, Soroush Rafiee Rad^*, Olivier Roy

^*Corresponding author for this work

Philosophy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We study the anchoring effect in a computational model of group deliberation on preference rankings. Anchoring is a form of path-dependence through which the opinions of those who speak early have a stronger influence on the outcome of deliberation than the opinions of those who speak later. We show that anchoring can occur even among fully rational agents. We then compare the respective effects of anchoring and three other determinants of the deliberative outcome: the relative weight or social influence of the speakers, the popularity of a given speaker’s opinion, and the homogeneity of the group. We find that, on average, anchoring has the strongest effect among these. We finally show that anchoring is often correlated with increases in proximity to single-plateauedness. We conclude that anchoring can constitute a structural bias that might hinder some of the otherwise positive effects of group deliberation.

Original language	English
Number of pages	29
Journal	Erkenntnis
Volume	Online
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-024-00814-7
Publication status	Published - 30 Jul 2024

Access to Document

10.1007/s10670-024-00814-7Licence: CC BY

Braun_2024_Erk_Anchoring-Structural-Bias_CC
Copyright © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
Final published version, 1.15 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

@article{d08db57047564b63b269f672d5b1515c,

title = "Anchoring as a structural bias of deliberation",

abstract = "We study the anchoring effect in a computational model of group deliberation on preference rankings. Anchoring is a form of path-dependence through which the opinions of those who speak early have a stronger influence on the outcome of deliberation than the opinions of those who speak later. We show that anchoring can occur even among fully rational agents. We then compare the respective effects of anchoring and three other determinants of the deliberative outcome: the relative weight or social influence of the speakers, the popularity of a given speaker{\textquoteright}s opinion, and the homogeneity of the group. We find that, on average, anchoring has the strongest effect among these. We finally show that anchoring is often correlated with increases in proximity to single-plateauedness. We conclude that anchoring can constitute a structural bias that might hinder some of the otherwise positive effects of group deliberation.",

author = "Braun, {Sebastian Till} and {Rafiee Rad}, Soroush and Olivier Roy",

year = "2024",

month = jul,

day = "30",

doi = "10.1007/s10670-024-00814-7",

language = "English",

volume = "Online",

journal = "Erkenntnis",

issn = "0165-0106",

publisher = "Springer",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Anchoring as a structural bias of deliberation

AU - Braun, Sebastian Till

AU - Rafiee Rad, Soroush

AU - Roy, Olivier

PY - 2024/7/30

Y1 - 2024/7/30

N2 - We study the anchoring effect in a computational model of group deliberation on preference rankings. Anchoring is a form of path-dependence through which the opinions of those who speak early have a stronger influence on the outcome of deliberation than the opinions of those who speak later. We show that anchoring can occur even among fully rational agents. We then compare the respective effects of anchoring and three other determinants of the deliberative outcome: the relative weight or social influence of the speakers, the popularity of a given speaker’s opinion, and the homogeneity of the group. We find that, on average, anchoring has the strongest effect among these. We finally show that anchoring is often correlated with increases in proximity to single-plateauedness. We conclude that anchoring can constitute a structural bias that might hinder some of the otherwise positive effects of group deliberation.

AB - We study the anchoring effect in a computational model of group deliberation on preference rankings. Anchoring is a form of path-dependence through which the opinions of those who speak early have a stronger influence on the outcome of deliberation than the opinions of those who speak later. We show that anchoring can occur even among fully rational agents. We then compare the respective effects of anchoring and three other determinants of the deliberative outcome: the relative weight or social influence of the speakers, the popularity of a given speaker’s opinion, and the homogeneity of the group. We find that, on average, anchoring has the strongest effect among these. We finally show that anchoring is often correlated with increases in proximity to single-plateauedness. We conclude that anchoring can constitute a structural bias that might hinder some of the otherwise positive effects of group deliberation.

U2 - 10.1007/s10670-024-00814-7

DO - 10.1007/s10670-024-00814-7

M3 - Article

SN - 0165-0106

VL - Online

JO - Erkenntnis

JF - Erkenntnis

ER -

Anchoring as a structural bias of deliberation

Abstract

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this