Latest Sunk costs Stories

‘Sunk-cost’ mindset also keeps losers in the stock market Within hours this summer, 30 American troops died in a strike in Afghanistan and millions of American investors watched the Dow Jones Average shed an astonishing 634 points in one day. While it might be difficult to find similarities in the two events, social psychologists can detect a common theme: In each case, investments (money and human lives) were made, and those resources were painfully lost. The ‘sunk-cost’...

It's a common problem in the business world"”throwing good money after bad. People cling to bad investments, hoping that more time, effort, and money will rescue their turkey of a project. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that changing people's mindsets can make them more likely to abandon a failing investment. "These situations happen all the time," says Assistant Professor Daniel C. Molden, of Northwestern...