Department of Marketing, CUHK Business School, Shatin, Hong Kong.
PLoS One. 2019 Jan 8;14(1):e0209900. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0209900. eCollection 2019.
Continuing investing in a failing plan (i.e., the sunk-cost fallacy) is a common error that people are inclined to make when making decisions. It is impossible to get resources back that already have been invested. Hence, economic theory implies that decision makers' decisions should only be guided by future gains and losses. According to the literature, the sunk-cost fallacy is driven by negative affect. Previous studies focused on negative incidental affect. We investigated, in contrast, whether the sunk-cost fallacy is caused by integral affect elicited by the specific decision context. Study 1 demonstrated a positive relationship between affective reaction and the sunk-cost fallacy. Study 2 replicated the finding in Study 1 in a within-subjects design, and demonstrated a full mediation of type of scenario (invest vs. non-invest) on the sunk-cost effect, mediated by integral affective reaction. A mediation using a within-subjects design additionally demonstrated that the effect is mediated by integral emotional responses experienced in relation to each scenario, and not by incidental emotional states that are unrelated to the scenarios. Study 3 replicated findings in the previous studies, and demonstrated that the relation between the sunk-cost fallacy and affect is moderated by justification. Participants who justified their decision were more resistant to the sunk-cost fallacy, and showed less negative affect elicited by the scenarios, than participants who did not justify their decision. Study 4 provided supporting evidence for our hypothesis by hindering conscious deliberation, and promoting reliance on affect, via cognitive load. The results showed that the relation between affect and the sunk-cost fallacy was stronger for participants under high cognitive load, than under low-load. The paper discussed how this research leads to new ways to protect against the sunk-cost fallacy in the discussion.
继续投资于失败的计划（即沉没成本谬误）是人们在做决策时容易犯的常见错误。已经投入的资源不可能收回。因此，经济理论意味着决策者的决策应该只受未来收益和损失的指导。根据文献，沉没成本谬误是由负面情绪引起的。之前的研究集中在负面偶然情绪上。相比之下，我们调查了沉没成本谬误是否是由特定决策情境引起的整体情绪引起的。研究 1 表明情感反应与沉没成本谬误之间存在正相关关系。研究 2 在被试内设计中复制了研究 1 的发现，并证明了投资与非投资情景对沉没成本效应的完整中介作用，由整体情感反应介导。使用被试内设计的中介作用还表明，这种效应是由与每个情景相关的整体情绪反应介导的，而不是由与情景无关的偶然情绪状态介导的。研究 3 复制了之前研究的发现，并证明了沉没成本谬误和情感之间的关系受到合理化的调节。为自己的决定辩护的参与者更能抵制沉没成本谬误，并且在情境中表现出较少的负面情绪，而不辩护自己决定的参与者则不然。研究 4 通过通过认知负荷来阻碍有意识的思考并促进对情感的依赖，为我们的假设提供了支持性证据。结果表明，在高认知负荷下，参与者的情感与沉没成本谬误之间的关系比低负荷下更强。该论文讨论了这项研究如何在讨论中为防止沉没成本谬误提供新方法。
