The first number on the table is rarely the fair number, but it is almost always the gravitational center of the deal. Decades of experimental work, from Tversky and Kahneman's original studies to Adam Galinsky's negotiation simulations at Kellogg, show the same effect with embarrassing consistency: the side that anchors first ends up closer to its preferred outcome, even when the anchor is plainly aggressive. If you have walked out of a negotiation feeling like you fought hard but still landed near the other side's opening figure, you were probably anchored. The remedy is not to refuse the game. The remedy is to play it deliberately.
Why Anchors Work Even on Sophisticated Negotiators
Anchoring exploits the way human cognition handles uncertainty. When we are unsure of a number's true value, we latch onto whatever reference point is available and adjust from there. The adjustments are almost always insufficient. Experiments have anchored MBA students, real estate agents with decades of experience, and federal judges sentencing offenders, and the effect persists. Expertise reduces the magnitude but does not eliminate it.
This matters because most business negotiations occur in conditions of genuine uncertainty. Nobody knows the precise market value of a mid-market software company, a six-month consulting engagement, or a key engineering hire. Into that uncertainty, the first specific number lands like a stake in the ground. Everything afterward is measured from that stake.
The Anatomy of a Strong Anchor
A useful anchor is aggressive but defensible. Aggressive means it sits at the optimistic edge of what a reasonable observer could justify. Defensible means you have a rationale ready when the other side challenges it. An anchor without a story collapses under the first push.
Specificity also matters more than negotiators realize. Research by Malia Mason at Columbia found that precise anchors (an asking price of $1,067,000) get smaller counter-offers than round anchors ($1,000,000) because precision implies the seller has done detailed analysis. The other side adjusts more cautiously, fearing they will overshoot. When you choose your number, resist the urge to round. A salary ask of $187,500 lands differently than $190,000, even though the round number is technically higher.
Set Your Anchor From Your Aspiration, Not Your Reservation
Most people anchor too softly because they confuse their walk-away point with their target. Your reservation price is the worst outcome you will accept. Your aspiration is the best outcome you can credibly defend. Anchor from the aspiration, with a buffer above it for the concessions that will inevitably follow. If you want $150,000 and you know there will be roughly two rounds of negotiation, you should probably open near $170,000, not at $155,000.
When the Other Side Anchors First
Sometimes you cannot control who opens. A recruiter asks your salary expectation. A buyer sends a term sheet before you have priced the deal. When their anchor lands first, you have a narrow window before it cements.
The worst move is to counter immediately with your own number. This trains the negotiation into a midpoint split, and the midpoint between an aggressive anchor and a fair counter is still bad for you. Instead, discredit the anchor before you respond to it. Ask how they arrived at the figure. Note what their reasoning ignores. Reframe the dimensions on which value is being measured. Only after you have weakened the anchor's gravitational pull do you introduce your own number, which should be just as aggressive in the opposite direction.
Galinsky calls this the counter-anchor, and the research is clear that a strong counter-anchor is more effective than an attempt to negotiate inside the other side's range. If a buyer opens at $2M for your company and your aspiration is $5M, do not counter at $4.5M. Counter at $6M with a story about why the buyer's framing missed two value drivers.
The First-Mover Question
Academic consensus now favors anchoring first when you have reasonable information about the bargaining zone. The classic worry, that you might leave money on the table by opening too low, is real but rare in practice. Most negotiators err in the other direction, opening too softly and then defending that softness all the way to the close.
The exception worth respecting is the case of severe information asymmetry. If the other side knows much more about market conditions than you do, letting them anchor first can be a way to gather intelligence. Their opening number tells you something about their model of the deal. Once you have that information, you can use it to construct your counter-anchor with confidence.
Holding the Anchor Under Pressure
Dropping an anchor is easy. Holding it is the hard part. The moment after you state a number, the other side will react: silence, a scoff, a stated impossibility, a counter that pretends your number was never said. Your instinct will be to soften, to explain, to add concessions before they even ask. This is the most expensive mistake in the entire process.
The discipline is to let the anchor sit. State the number, give the rationale once, and then wait. If they push back, respond to the substance of their objection, not to their emotional intensity. Concede on small dimensions before you concede on the headline number. Anchors that are defended for ten minutes hold most of their value. Anchors that are softened in the first sixty seconds collapse entirely.
The Underlying Insight
Anchoring is often described as a bias, which makes it sound like a flaw to be corrected. In negotiation it is better understood as a feature of how value gets established when value is uncertain. The first credible, specific, well-reasoned number defines what the conversation is about. Every subsequent move is a reaction to it. If you treat anchoring as a manipulation, you will keep losing to people who treat it as a craft. Decide what you actually want, build a defensible story around a number slightly beyond it, say it first, and then have the patience to hold it while the other side adjusts.