CHAPTER TWO

Open to Options

How Your Telephone Number Can Influence Your Decisions

DANIEL KAHNEMAN’S significant contributions to our understanding of how people think and act should be a staple of any professional’s training. During one meeting I had with him, his comment about the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic really stuck with me. Here’s an example of how this heuristic works, based on an exercise I did with my students at Columbia Business School. I gave them a form requesting two numbers.1 If you have never done this exercise, take a moment and jot down your responses.

1. The last four digits of your phone number:_____________________

 

2. An estimate of the number of doctors in New York City’s Manhattan borough:_____________________ ...

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