Anchoring effects in the assessment of papers: An empirical survey of citing authors.

ABSTRACT: In our study, we have empirically studied the assessment of cited papers within the framework of the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic. We are interested in the question whether the assessment of a paper can be influenced by numerical information that act as an anchor (e.g. citation impact). We have undertaken a survey of corresponding authors with an available email address in the Web of Science database. The authors were asked to assess the quality of papers that they cited in previous papers. Some authors were assigned to three treatment groups that receive further information alongside the cited paper: citation impact information, information on the publishing journal (journal impact factor) or a numerical access code to enter the survey. The control group did not receive any further

SUBMITTER: Bornmann L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10065272 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature