Asking For Independent Advice

When people ask for advice or a second opinion, they give clues to the answer they are expecting so they don’t get a truly independent point of view.

In a series of experiments, researchers found that people often add their own opinion when they ask for an opinion or advice, even though they are aware of the benefits of independent advice. People likely include their opinion to appear smart and to show they aren’t lazy by having done their own research. Unfortunately, the included opinion serves as a biased anchor which unduly influences the advisor.

To examine the real-world impact of inadvertently influencing another person when asking for advice, the researchers analyzed more than 800 posts on the sub-Reddit r/personalfinance. They found that people included their own thinking in the request 30-40% of the time. “Instead of asking, ‘How many credit cards should I have,’ posters asked ‘Are four credit cards too many to have?’.” The suggestion of four provided an anchor to the responses.

After validating the Reddit findings with an experiment, the researchers asked participants what they most valued when seeking advice: competence, effort, or independence. Across multiple experiments, they found participants who valued competence or effort were more likely to include anchors in their requests than those who valued independence.

In another experiment in the series, participants were tasked with estimating the height of a building by soliciting advice from six other people whose answers would be averaged with their own. Those participants who provided their own opinion when requesting an estimate ended up with a less accurate averaged result than those who did not. As one researcher wrote: “The anchored crowd gave more similar answers to each other than the unanchored crowd, blocking the benefits of diverse thought.”

This phenomenon plays out in businesses and in our personal lives every single day. Managers frequently start problem-solving meetings with their opinion as to what the solution should be before opening it up to team members for brain storming. Even if team members are encouraged to think independently and are willing to disagree with the boss, their thought processes are anchored by the original suggestion, reducing creativity.

In our personal lives, we often anchor our questions with our opinions. For example, ‘I don’t think we should spend more than $200 for that repair; how about you?’ or ‘What do you think about going to Chinese food for dinner?’ It’s possible the person you asked might have suggested $400 for the repair before you anchored them at $200. Similarly, they are less likely to suggest another cuisine once you have suggested Chinese food.

If you want to look smart with colleagues and friends but still get independent advice, one approach is to tell them you have an opinion but you aren’t sharing it so that you don’t influence them. Another experiment showed it was just as effective to ‘say’ you have an opinion as it was to ‘share’ the opinion. And, without sharing, you get a truly independent advice.

It’s hard to ask good questions. It shouldn’t be hard to ask for independent advice.