When deciding whether to continue, only consider future investments and future returns — not what has already been invested
Money and time already spent make people more inclined to keep going. Across 98 datasets, this tendency remains consistent. Therefore, when deciding whether to continue, only factor in future investments and expected returns; past expenditures should be excluded from consideration.
No cost involved. The difficulty lies in accepting that ti…
Prior investments of money, effort, and time increase the likelihood of continued engagement. This is known as…
No cost involved. The difficulty lies in accepting that time already invested cannot be recovered.
Prior investments of money, effort, and time increase the likelihood of continued engagement. This is known as the sunk cost effect in psychology. Analysis of 98 datasets confirms this tendency is stable. Avoiding this bias prevents people from continuing to invest time solely to avoid “wasting” what they have already spent.
Arkes, H. R., & Blumer, C. (1985). The psychology of sunk cost. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 35, 124–140. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(85)90049-4；Roth, S., Robbert, T., & Straus, L. (2015). On the sunk-cost effect in economic decision-making: A meta-analytic review. Business Research, 8(1), 99–138. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40685-014-0014-8
Open source linkThat theater experiment by Arkes and Blumer was conducted this way. The University of Ohio theater sold season tickets, randomly assigning purchasers to one of three prices: the original price of 15 USD, a discount of 2 USD, or a discount of 7 USD. During the first half of the season, the group at the original price watched an average of 4.11 shows, while the other two groups watched 3.32 and 3.29 shows, respectively. In the second half of the season, there was no significant difference among the three groups. Roth et al. found that this effect fades over time, and older individuals are less affected.