No Numbers Needed? - The Power of Semantic Anchoring

Anchoring represents one of the most important and most investigated negotiation tactics. Although scholars already discovered the semantic nature of anchors, negotiation research has thus far been focusing on numerical indications. However, situations do arise in negotiations when a party wants to use the first mover advantage, but simultaneously—for example, due to uncertainty—cannot or does not want to reveal numbers. Such a party would then rather say that prices have risen since the previous year, or that the product is of a superior quality and therefore more expensive than those of the competitors in the market. This study investigates the power of semantic anchors, which rather preset a price direction than mention a number. Therefore, a pretest reveals the semantic anchoring effect, which should be further validated via a negotiation experiment. This is a work in progress; final results are expected in spring.