Anchoring effect in the context of price setting: A study on Istanbul University students

The mainstream approach in economics is that people are rational individuals and this rationality determines their daily behavior and attitudes. It is assumed that the prices are determined according to the equilibrium situation in the market within the scope of the law of supply and demand. Behavioral economics offers an alternative approach to this context, arguing that people have various cognitive heuristics and cognitive biases. In this study, it was conducted to reveal that price determination may be caused by other factors rather than the law of supply and demand. Any initial exposures of a random number or comparative priming influences people's subsequent decisions and inclines them to this starting point, and people often (almost never) are consciously aware of this.The research is designed to determine how a provided random number would affect the prices individuals are willing to pay for some consumer products. As a result of the research, it has been observed that the prices are affected by the initial random numbers, but consistent prices are formed compared to each other for the products in the same category.