Consider this simple thought experiment:
Assume that you have spent $100 on a ticket for a weekend ski trip to Michigan. Several weeks later you buy a $50 ticket for a weekend ski trip to Wisconsin. You think you will enjoy the Wisconsin ski trip more than the Michigan ski trip. As you are putting your just-purchased Wisconsin ski trip ticket in your wallet, you notice that the Michigan ski trip and the Wisconsin ski trip are for the same weekend! It’s too late to sell either ticket, and you cannot return either one. You must use one ticket and not the other. Which ski trip will you go on?
If you chose Michigan, you are like 54% of the respondents in this study who based their decision on the ticket prices.
This does not make sense, as you obviously derive more satisfaction from Wisconsin than Michigan, despite the higher price!
What just happened is referred to as sunk costs, which Ohio State University professors, Hal Arkes, and Catherine Blumer, describe as the ‘… greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made. The prior investment, which is motivating the present decision to continue, does so despite the fact that it objectively should not influence the decision…the psychological justification for this maladaptive behavior is predicated on the desire not to appear wasteful.’
Sunk costs are a reason behind many people’s unhappiness in this day and age.
It is the reason why people continue to remain in abusive relationships. They consider the time and efforts they had already invested in the relationship, despite common sense appealing to them to stay alive by opting out.
The effects of sunk costs are not just limited to individuals. You see the same patterns repeating itself in the kinds of decisions made by corporations and governments.
Who can forget how the almighty Concorde passenger jet continued to fly for 27 years, despite the fact that it was not commercially viable to stay in business. Similarly, US citizens will not be in a hurry to neglect the way its government handled, not one, but two needless wars in the shape of the Vietnam and Iraq conflicts.
At this point, the question is pretty straightforward: How can we reduce errors in judgment made as a result of sunk costs?
In the next few paragraphs, I share three simple strategies that will be helpful to you.
Be Introspective to Reduce Sunk Cost Errors
In my post, The Myth of Quitting: When Quitting is a Good Idea, I talk about the Stockdale Paradox, which states that, “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.“
Most people allow sunk costs to cloud their judgments because they allow their heads to stay in the sky while seeing the world through rainbow-colored lenses.
If you want to reduce the negative impact of sunk costs in your life, you need to be willing to be introspective and have uncomfortable conversations with yourself.
Don’t be afraid to ask yourself the hard questions about your current course of action. Ask yourself, ‘Is this the best use of my time and resources?’ , ‘Would I be better off without this relationship?’, Should I be looking for alternative uses of my resources?‘
These are questions that have the potential of changing your life. However, you will never be able to answer them if you do not give yourself the time to slow down and be introspective.
Reduce Sunk Costs By Reaching Out for Advice
Many times, the quality of our decisions are a reflection of where we are, and what we know at a given time. In my native Yoruba dialect, there is a powerful proverb which says, ‘Nkan ti agba ri lori ijoko, b’omode ba gun’gi o le ma ri ‘. This roughly translates as ‘What a child needs to climb a ladder to see, an elder sees it effortlessly while seated’
Sometimes, no matter how much you introspect, there’s still no substitute for experience.
JoNell Strough, of West Virginia University, and her colleagues conducted a study to see how people reacted to a failing plan that was halfway complete. They discovered that older people were likelier to cancel the plan, as opposed to younger people who continued to plow through, despite all the signs pointing to failure.
You don’t need to make all the mistakes yourself.
If you want to improve the quality of your decisions and reduce errors due to sunk costs, don’t be afraid to reach out to experienced people who are more knowledgeable than you in a particular area or field.
Detach Your Identity from Your Decisions
If you want to reduce the hold of sunk costs over you, you must not be afraid to separate what you consider as your true abilities, from the results of your decisions.
In studies conducted by Itamar Simonson and Barry M. Staw, from the University of California, they observed that people have a tendency to justify their poor decisions by increasing their commitments to them.
This means one thing: Their identities are formed by their decisions.
Therefore, in order to protect their identities, people have a need to protect and commit to their decisions – even when it does not make sense!
As a result, they continue to plow through the path of sunk costs, despite it not being in their best interests to continue to do so.
When you take the bold step of not seeing your identity in the results of your decisions, your attitude changes.
Instead of seeing decisions as an identity to protect at all costs, you start seeing them as learning opportunities that will help you in the long run.
In Conclusion…
A lot of unnecessary pain, waste and heartache can be avoided if you are able to identify sunk costs.
To do that, you need to be more introspective about the status quo, more open to advise from mentors and experts, and more willing to detach your sense of self from the outcomes of your decisions.