Adjustment heuristic
Etymology
From "adjust" (Old French "ajoster," to bring together) and "heuristic" (Greek "heuriskein," to find out). It comes from Kahneman and Tversky’s 1974 work on judgment under uncertainty, as part of the "anchoring and adjustment" heuristic.
noun phrase · /uh-JUST-munt hyoo-RIS-tik/
The mental shortcut of starting from an initial value and adjusting toward an answer — usually not adjusting far enough.
What it names
The second half of "anchoring and adjustment" — why our estimates stay tethered to wherever we began.
Example
Told the answer was probably over 50, people guessed numbers just above it — the adjustment heuristic keeping them near the anchor.
Related idea
Anchoring is the pull of that first number; the adjustment heuristic is the insufficient shuffle away from it that leaves the anchor’s influence intact.