goodenomics™

The evidence

The sunk cost effect: finishing what should be stopped

The money is gone and the work is nearly done. A better way has just appeared. Do you finish what you started?

A scene from The Review, the journey where the game asks this question.
A scene from the game, as it is drawn: one handwritten line at a time.

Sunk cost effect

Continuing to spend on something because of what has already been spent, rather than because of what the next pound will buy.

What the study found

In 1985, 48 students were told that $10 million had already gone into building a plane that radar cannot detect, that it was 90% finished, and that a rival had just put a better plane on sale. 41 of them (85%) chose to spend the last of the money to finish it. Of 60 others, told that nothing had yet been spent, only 10 (17%) chose to fund the same plane.

Source: Arkes, H. R., & Blumer, C. (1985). The psychology of sunk cost. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 35(1), 124-140. doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(85)90049-4

How to read this

These are the answers of particular people, asked in a particular way, at a particular time. A share of people is not a verdict: it tells you what they answered, not what is right.

Where the game asks it

The Review (What would change your mind?). The game’s versions with family, age, consent and combined pressures are new comparisons written for it. They are not copies of the experiments, and no population percentages are claimed for them.

Play The Review Free. No account. Your place is saved on your device.

More evidence