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Although you might not have realized it, that cue became an extreme anchor point that influenced you to perceive a cheeseburger as having more calories.
    A recent study confirmed that same outcome (Chernev, 2011). People who were primed to think of “an organic fruit salad” (an anchor point that’s positioned on the extreme low end of the calorie spectrum) adjusted their calorie estimate of a subsequent cheeseburger away from the low end because that extreme anchor point made the calorie difference seem more pronounced. In a sense, the very healthy fruit salad became one of the smaller surrounding circles in the optical illusion, which caused you to perceive a large number of calories in a cheeseburger. Conversely, people who were primed to think of a “decadent cheesecake” (an anchor point that’s positioned on the extreme high end of the calorie spectrum) adjusted their calorie estimate of a cheeseburger away from the high end. The cheeseburger became the seemingly smaller Circle B because the very unhealthy cheesecake made the number of calories in a cheeseburger seem fewer.
    This chapter described how assimilation toward an arbitrary prison sentence length can alter a person’s life, and unfortunately, contrast effects are no different. When judges evaluate a homicide case (an anchor that lies on the egregious end of the crime spectrum), they tend to perceive subsequent cases to be less severe. If an assault case is presented immediately following a homicide case, the judge tends to issue sentences that are shorter than the average length for assaults because of perceptual contrast. Likewise, a homicide that is judged after an assault case is perceived to be more severe, and the judge tends to issue a sentence that is longer than average (Pepitone & DiNubile, 1976).
    Before continuing, you should realize that contrast effects occur only with semantic categories (e.g., types of food, types of crime). The good news is that nearly all numeric anchors cause assimilation. Much like how people give higher estimates of Gandhi’s age when they’re asked if he was younger or older than 140 (Strack & Mussweiler, 1997), any number that you present to your target—whether that number is relevant, arbitrary, or absurdly extreme—will cause people to adjust their judgment toward that number.
    PERSUASION STRATEGY: ANCHOR THEIR PERCEPTION
    There are plenty of instances where providing an anchor could boost your persuasion. Perhaps you’re a salesperson sending an e-mail to customers asking if they want to reorder your products; why not offer a numeric anchor that’s higher than average? That higher number would become an anchor point that your customers would assimilate toward, leading to a larger purchase than they would typically buy.
    But besides those basic anchoring strategies, there are many other persuasion applications that aren’t so obvious. This section will explain some clever strategies to give you an idea of the sheer potential of anchoring.
    Present a Decoy. As Dan Ariely (2009) describes in Predictably Irrational , the options that you present to your target can become anchor points that people use to compare the other options. Imagine that you’re deciding between two subscriptions to a magazine:
     
Product A: Online subscription for $59.
Product B: Online and print subscription for $125.
    When presented with those options, 68 percent of students chose the online subscription and 32 percent chose the online and print subscription, a distribution that resulted in $8,012 of revenue.
    But something fascinating happened when a new subscription option was added. Take a look at the product marked as “B–” (to imply that the product is similar to Product B, yet worse in one aspect):
     
Product A: Online subscription for $59.
Product B–: Print subscription for $125.
Product B: Online and print subscription for $125.
    If you present those options to people, you’d be hard-pressed to find even one person