The Sunk Cost Effect in Humans: Procedural Comparisons

• Published in: The Psychological record 2022-06, Vol.72 (2), p.275-283
• Main Authors: Devoto, Amanda, DeFulio, Anthony
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Behavior; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Birds; Choice (Psychology); Computer & video games; Contingencies; Costs; Expected values; Experiments; Original Article; Psychological research; Psychology; Questionnaires; Schedules; Set (Psychology); Stimulus; Verbal behaviour; Verbal Stimuli; Video Games
• ISSN: 0033-2933; 2163-3452
• DOI: 10.1007/s40732-021-00499-2

The present study was designed to extend research by Pattison et al. ( 2012 ) and compare performance on behavior-based and hypothetical scenario-based sunk cost procedures. Participants (n = 25) completed behavior-based and hypothetical scenario-based tasks to investigate the effects of manipulating percent of task completed on sunk cost behavior. For the behavior-based task, participants played a video game and chose between continuing to engage an initial monster or switching to attack a new monster that arrived. For the hypothetical scenario-based tasks, participants were given a scenario in which continuing on a present course of action entailed losses or was otherwise non-optimal. They were asked at various points of completion how likely they were to invest the remaining funds in the project. Overall, participants responded optimally on the behavior-based task and engaged in sunk cost behavior for the hypothetical scenario-based tasks. One explanation for the difference between these tasks is that the behavior-based task may have more discriminable consequences; the consequences for the hypothetical tasks were unknown. Results from the present study align with previous studies suggesting that stimulus discriminability is a major determinant of non-optimal persistence on a task. It is possible that many supposed instances of the sunk cost effect are better conceptualized as behavior produced by contingencies in contexts with uncertain or probabilistic outcomes. In sunk cost procedures with human participants, verbal behavior appears to play an important role.