Do Researchers Anchor their Beliefs on the Outcome of an Initial Study? Testing the Time-Reversal Heuristic

Abstract

As a research field expands, scientists have to update their knowledge and integrate the outcomes of a sequence of studies. However, such integrative judgments are generally known to fall victim to a primacy bias where people anchor their judgments on the initial information. In this preregistered study we tested the hypothesis that people anchor on the outcome of a small initial study, reducing the impact of a larger subsequent study that contradicts the initial result. Contrary to our expectation, undergraduates and academics displayed a recency bias, anchoring their judgment on the research outcome presented last. This recency bias is due to the fact that unsuccessful replications decreased trust in an effect more than did unsuccessful initial experiments. We recommend the time-reversal heuristic to account for temporal order effects during integration of research results