People choose non-round numbers to signal that figures resulted from detailed calculation.

Evidence

The other side of this coin is that when a person wants others to believe that a figure she has selected was the result of complex and detailed calculations, she will pick a number that is not round. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2565

Categorization

• CANDY: A light, tweetable observation about why numbers like 875 vs 1,000 are chosen — genuinely fun conversational material.