Underpowered studies and exaggerated effects: A replication and re‐evaluation of the magnitude of anchoring effects

Tongzhe Li, Collin Weigel, Paul Ferraro and Kent D. Messer

Economic Inquiry, 2025, vol. 63, issue 2, 387-402

Abstract: We reconsider one of the most widely studied behavioral biases: anchoring effects. We estimate that study designs in this literature, including replication studies, routinely fail to achieve statistical power of more than 30%. This study replicates an anchoring study that reported an effect size of a 31% increase in participants' bids. In the replication, we increased the design's statistical power from 46% to 96%, reducing the average exaggeration of a statistically significant result by a factor of seven. Our replication results reject the size of the original estimated effects. We find an estimated effect of 3.4% (95% CI [−3.4%, 10%]).

Date: 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.13279

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