← all facts
decision making
You continue painful projects to avoid admitting loss.
Individuals invest more time and resources into a failing project simply because they have already invested in it.
This is the sunk cost fallacy, where the investment of past effort becomes a psychological barrier to cutting losses. Even when the future prospects of the project are poor, the desire to justify the previous expenditure keeps you committed.
You treat the past as a reason for future mistakes.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Arkes and Blumer, 1985
- What the check found
- The attribution is accurate, and the definition aligns with the seminal work by Arkes and Blumer (1985) on the sunk cost effect.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.