anchoring

English

Etymology

From anchor +‎ -ing.

Noun

anchoring (countable and uncountable, plural anchorings)

1. The act or means by which something is anchored or made firm.
   • 2012, Professor Christian Hermansen Cordua, Manifestoes and Transformations in the Early Modernist City, page 161:

     Stripped of its temporal anchorings, what remains of Geddes's thinking was its inactual or anachronic idealism, which often isolated him from his contemporaries […]

2. (psychology) The tendency of people to place subsequently refined answers to a given question close to the initially estimated answer, giving undue weight to the initial answer, such as adjusting an initial estimate of 20% to 30% when 90% would be more appropriate.

   Synonym: focalism

Derived terms

• anchoring effect

 

Verb

anchoring

1. present participle and gerund of anchor