Anchoring bias involves which tendency?

• A. Sinking to first thought
• B. Overestimating the importance of recent events
• C. Seeking information that confirms beliefs
• D. Avoiding considering alternatives

Answer: (A)

Anchoring bias makes you rely too heavily on the first piece of information you encounter and then fail to adjust your judgment adequately as new data come in. That’s why this tendency is described as sinking to the first thought—you anchor your estimate or decision to that initial point and don’t move it enough when more information appears.

For example, in clinical reasoning, a clinician might latch onto an initial diagnosis after hearing the first symptoms and continue to lean on that impression even as additional signs emerge. The other choices describe different biases: weighting recent events too much is recency bias; seeking information that confirms preconceptions is confirmation bias; and avoiding considering alternatives reflects a resistance to exploring other possibilities, not the initial anchor effect.