Question

John is going to buy a car. He wants a used Honda. The salesmen shows him one from 2012. John's not really positive how much the car is worth to him. The sticker says 14,000 and they end up agreeing on 12,000. If the sticker had said 13,000, John might not have agreed to 12,000 - he might have become convinced that the car was only worth 11,000 to him. While he certainly did not just accept the starting price (he made some changes away from that starting point), his final agreed upon price (or final estimate of the car's value) was still biased/influenced by the first number he heard. John is relying on the:

Answer 1

anchoring bias

Step-by-step explanation:

In business, anchoring bias happens when a consumer relies on pre-existing information (in this case sales price) to make their purchasing decisions. E.g. a sales promotion where a before price is set as the anchor to show that the after price (with the discount) is a really good deal.

In this case, John started to negotiate a sales price using the sticker price as an anchor, and ended up making a good deal because he got a $2,000 discount.