“In many situations, people make estimates by starting from an initial value that is adjusted to yield the final answer. The initial value, or starting point, may be suggested by the formulation of the problem, or it may be the result of a partial computation. In either case, adjustments are typically insufficient (Slovic & Lichtenstein, 1971). That is, different starting points yield different estimates, which are biased toward the initial values. We call this phenomenon anchoring.” – Tversky and Kahneman (1974)
人类在进行决策时，会过度偏重先前取得的资讯（这称为锚点），即使这个资讯与这项决定无关。在进行决策时，人类倾向于利用此片断资讯(锚点)，快速做出决定。在接下来的决定中，再以第一个决定为基准，逐步修正。但是人类容易过度利用锚点，来对其他资讯与决定做出诠释，当锚点与实际上的事实之间的有很大出入，就会出现当局者迷的情况。