1 A newly hired engineer for a computer firm in the Boston metropolitan area has four years experience and good all-around qualifications. When asked to estimate the starting salary for this employee, my secretary (knowing very little about the profession or the industry) guessed an annual salary of $65,000. What is your estimate? $______________

4.2 Is the population of Burkina Faso greater than 45 million?

What's your best estimate of Burkina Fasos population? __________ million.

Another group answered question 4.1, but this time the question presented a much higher number instead ($130,000) and peoples estimates were very close to $130,000 and diverged significantly from the first group.

The other group also answered question 4.2, but in their version the number presented was 5 million, much smaller. Again, their estimates were very close to 5 million and diverged significantly from the first group.

Given neither the secretarys estimate (knows little about the profession/industry) nor the population number in the question has any credibility, why do you think peoples estimates were very close to the given numbers and diverged significantly? Identify and explain the decision bias that explains the results in this question.