This is not new. Behavioral Economics has always recognized biases as the result of heuristics -- rules of thumb that are mostly correct, especially with regards to our evolutionary history. However, in specific, predictable contexts, it can be very wrong, and lead to a person being manipulated.

For example, the anchoring bias is actually a useful heuristic in many situations. If you ask someone about the length of the Nile and a third person guessed 5000 miles, you probably would guess closer to 5000 miles to integrate the third person's information, which is usually somewhat informative.

The bias comes when an outside marketer manipulates you by saying "how much should the iPad cost? $2000? No! $1000? No! It's only $500!".