The advice to starting a negotiation with a favourable number as a conceptual anchor makes the mistake that a number should be at the beginning of a negotiation at all. The whole point of a negotiation is not to haggle down to a price, but to discover a "true" price based on seeking out principles. The point of negotiation isn't to simply raise the number like in the haggle, it's to influence their number to be the effect of your principles, so that the result is everyone feels they've got a good deal.<p>With practice, you can de-anchor discussions simply by re-framing their anchors using new principles.<p>e.g. Anchor: "Given your current salary is probably around $50k, we think you're way underpaid and we will offer you $52,500, which is a %5 raise just for switching jobs! You can thank me for getting you this incredible deal by signing right now."<p>Re-frame: "I really appreciate your initial effort on this. We can't disclose my current salary here because my employer treats it as competitive information and I'm still a member of this team so I can't really comment on that. Let's move the numbers discussion out a bit, and get a sense of the value I can provide in the role. However, looking at the glassdoor and city cost of living salary data for your company, the range you suggested is just below the average salary for other people in the role. I can solve one of your major problems with my unique experience out of the gate, which would take at least a quarter to six months in learning curve for your current team."<p>This simple re-framing is, destabilize the premise (their guess of your salary), add 2 new objective principles of a) competitive information, and b) glassdoor/city data source, then provide them with relief from the instability stress you created using a soft sweetener (offer of hidden value) without even coming back with a number. This is a simplified case, but you get the idea. So yes, anchoring, but now that you see the reframing to your principles (a new anchor), it's much less of an obstacle.