In Brian Sweis’s article, “Sensitivity
to sunk costs in mice, rats, and humans, he sheds light on a topic that
everyone deals with very frequently, but no one ever consciously thinks
about. This topic is the sunken cost
fallacy. This fallacy, in its simplest
terms, is that one is less likely to quit doing an activity if they have spent
a considerable amount of time doing it, even if it would make them happier or
benefit them if they were to stop. What
Sweis did in his article was talk about his research involving multiple
organisms and if the ‘sunken cost fallacy’ was held throughout species. What he found was surprising; humans were not
the only organisms to adhere to this fallacy, mice were as well. For the mice and rats, he set up the Restaurant Row task. This task involved 4 different ‘restaurants’
where a mouse would receive food, but only after a certain wait time
period. The time period could be
adjusted to be longer or shorter, and whether the mouse decided to wait or
continue was quantified in a graph. What
the results showed was that the amount of time waiting for food, or in the case
of the humans, the entertaining video, directly correlated to the commitment of
waiting till the end. This data shows
that sunken cost fallacy, is conserved across species, but the question is
why? What evolutionary advantage has
kept sunken cost fallacy alive?
In
experiments conducted by Christopher Olivola, he suggests that adhering to the
sunken cost fallacy is behavioral in its nature. His experiment consisted of surveying various
scenarios to participants and asking whether they would stay and wait for the
end result or if they would quit and use their time in a more effective
manner. Of course these questions were veiled
amongst other related questions in order to stop any bias from influencing it
or letting the participants know the true meaning of the experiment. What he
found was that people were less likely to walk away from other people’s sunken
time as well. For example, he states
that in a hypothetical situation where a friend purchases an expensive cake and
spends a lot of time delivering it to you, more than 50% of participants would
eat it even if they reported being full or the cake was bad. This answers one of the questions that Sweis
article did not answer, why is it conserved.
Olivola’s research suggests that the sunk cost fallacy is conserved because
of a thinking for others. The results
show that sunken time directly influences interpersonal behavior. Though they do not elaborate on it, I believe
that it can be a mechanism of survival in which one stays in good standings
with others by appreciating other’s hard work.
This case, however, does not really apply to animals, who I believe would
have little care for other’s hard work.
Maybe more research could be done involving related animals and the
sunken cost fallacy, to see whether relatives would wait for the greater good
of their species.
In any case,
understanding the sunken cost fallacy helps one avoid it. Next time you catch yourself staying with
something even if you do not like or are not benefiting it, drop it and do
something that can actually do some good.
Citations:
Quick, Jazzy. “How the
'Sunk Cost Fallacy' Wreaks Havoc on Your Money and Your Mind.” Big Think,
Big Think, 5 Oct. 2018,
bigthink.com/jazzy-quick/sunk-cost-fallacy-a-new-twist-in-cognitive-bias.
Sweis, Brian M., et al.
“Sensitivity to ‘Sunk Costs’ in Mice, Rats, and Humans.” Science,
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 13 July 2018,
science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/178.
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