I interpreted “closer to A or to B” literally, i.e. “earlier or later than (A + B)/2”. Since, under this assumption, the question means exactly the same thing if you use (say) (A + 10) and (B − 10) instead, if other people thought the same way as me then the weighted average is meaningless, since it also depends on the very choice of A and B rather than just on their average (unless exactly half choose A and half choose B).
This was the intended interpretation and I was considering wording the questions this way. However, the way I used is worded more similarly to what I am trying to investigate.
Given that (A+B)/2 is the decision point, maybe tgb shouldn’t be worried about anchoring—it’s just the nature of the beast. An anchoring effect should be expected.
Indeed. The way the question is asked appear to suggest that the correct answer is either somewhere near A or somewhere near B, so if A and B were 1828 and 2012, or 1917 and 1918, the anchoring effects would be different.
I interpreted “closer to A or to B” literally, i.e. “earlier or later than (A + B)/2”. Since, under this assumption, the question means exactly the same thing if you use (say) (A + 10) and (B − 10) instead, if other people thought the same way as me then the weighted average is meaningless, since it also depends on the very choice of A and B rather than just on their average (unless exactly half choose A and half choose B).
This was the intended interpretation and I was considering wording the questions this way. However, the way I used is worded more similarly to what I am trying to investigate.
Given that (A+B)/2 is the decision point, maybe tgb shouldn’t be worried about anchoring—it’s just the nature of the beast. An anchoring effect should be expected.
Indeed. The way the question is asked appear to suggest that the correct answer is either somewhere near A or somewhere near B, so if A and B were 1828 and 2012, or 1917 and 1918, the anchoring effects would be different.
Thanks for pointing this out—this was not the intended reading.