Describe a surgeon. Let’s learn what is an anchoring bias

What happens when you bring the theory of bias into an agency, with real people, gathered around a table?

I know. I lived it.

A question for everyone.

I gave a lesson on cognitive bias to the team at Exprimo, a partner agency in Sassuolo, in the province of Modena, a solid established reality in the communication sector. A great opportunity to bring what I teach at the University of Pavia into an operational context. Theory and practice, finally in the same place.

At a certain point I asked the group to mentally visualize a surgeon. Just visualize them. Then I asked: how do you imagine them?

The result was unanimous, predictable: male, dark hair, green scrubs, sixty years old. Almost no one had spontaneously imagined a woman.

Welcome to anchoring bias. Our mind takes the first available frame – the one that culture, media, experience have etched inside us – and treats it as fact. Not as hypothesis. As reality.

September 11 and memory that doesn’t forget

Then I raised the bar. I asked: who among you remembers where you were on September 11, 2001? Those who could remember – who were old enough – nodded almost in unison. Someone smiled. Someone else stiffened. Every person in that room knew exactly where they were, what they were doing, who they were with. Over twenty years later.

This is confirmation bias merging with emotional memory: memories linked to intense emotions become cognitive anchors. We don’t verify them, don’t question them. We use them to interpret everything else.

In communication, this is not a detail. It’s the supporting structure of every message that truly works.

What it means for those working in communication and PR

Biases are not human defects to correct. They are cognitive architectures to know – and to use consciously, not to manipulate, but to communicate better. Building a campaign without asking the team which biases are guiding creative choices means working with your eyes closed.

Anchoring bias tells us that the first message the public receives about a brand or topic becomes the filter through which they read everything that comes after. Building that first impression is not an aesthetic exercise. It’s pure strategy.

Confirmation bias tells us that people seek information that confirms what they already believe. If you want to change a perception, you can’t do it head-on. You have to enter from the side where the door is already open.

Why training must leave the classrooms

I chose to do this session in an agency, not in a university classroom, for a precise reason: context changes learning. When you talk about bias to students, you’re preparing them for the future. When you bring it to an operational team, you’re helping them solve a real problem that already exists, probably as early as tomorrow morning.

The difference is not just pedagogical. It’s impact.