SOCIAL ANCHORS

Social anchors are a set of beliefs people buy into because of a set of invisible rules that revolve around the social constructs of established social affiliation networks. Social anchors aren’t always bad, but they are one of the main reasons for racial and gender bias.

Interestingly, even when we think we have moved into a new era of equality, social anchors still reveal their ugly heads, as demonstrated in 2022 when an AI chatbot created by Facebook exhibited racist behavior after less than a day of interacting with users. Specifically, Meta unveiled BlenderBot3 - an AI chatbot that could have natural conversations on nearly any topic. But it quickly started saying racist things like "all Muslims should die" and denying the Holocaust after being egged on by internet trolls.

Unfortunately, what this teaches us is the old social anchors that were part of the old racist, anti-woman, anti-gay rhetoric of the past were alive and well all around us, disguised in a more sinister cloaking outfit that allowed them to do their dirty deeds cloak and dagger style in our new ultra politically correct connected world.

You see, anchoring (also known as focalism) is a cognitive bias where an individual depends too heavily on an initial piece of information (considered to be the "anchor") when making decisions. Anchoring bias occurs early in the decision-making process, whereby people rely too much on preexisting information or the first information they find when making decisions. There are many sources for social anchors, fake news, political affiliation and related rhetoric, religion, etc.

For example, when Twitter implemented an algorithmic timeline in 2016 that showed tweets out of chronological order, it first anchored users to certain content, influencing their opinions and worldviews based on that initial anchoring.

Anchor thoughts are a powerful tool that helps prevent limiting beliefs from growing into worry or anxiety. They do that by keeping you anchored to the present moment. Repeating anchor thoughts is how you become a more deliberate thinker. Various studies have shown that anchoring is very difficult to avoid. People cannot adjust from an anchor effectively, even when offered monetary incentives.

Why is the Anchor Effect Important?

Imagine if the community around you had a set of beliefs that did not include people like you in their belief system. Now imagine that group being radical, teaching fringe attitudes based on fiction or truth that have been twisted to serve a purpose. Now think about living in a community like that, where those around you instinctively make decisions based on a bias that's become "baked-in."

What happens is unfortunate; as humans, our decisions act on reflex, most of us being unaware of the built-in bias we exhibit in our decision-making and logic processes. That's the danger with social anchors. Alternatively, social anchors could work in reverse, creating an automatic system of affiliation, which is also dangerous when membership into the "in group" is not based on performance or measured outcomes but instead a set of predefined rules that result in excluding the minority.