Broadcast Engineering and the Anchor Trap

Broadcast Engineering and the Anchor Trap
With the world of broadcast television relying so heavily on new technology to remain competitive, broadcast engineers find themselves continuously facing unfamiliar problems. These problems are most evident in the acquisition of newer equipment or new equipment to them. The resulting search for knowledge about this equipment can easily cause an engineer to accept the reasoning of another without further inquiries and/or testing. Thus, the anchor trap has been set.
Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa (1998), describe the anchor trap as, “when considering a decision, the mind gives disproportionate weight to the first information it receives. Initial impressions, estimates, or data anchor subsequent thought and judgments.” Although this concept of influenced decision making can be applied to almost every thing we do, I have realized that it can be found in my profession in abundance.
This week for me has consisted of repairing my o...