The Sunken Cost Fallacy.

Hey! It’s nice that you’re here again. Honestly, I’m glad you’re here. If you’re new, you’re very precious to my heart , and I hope you like it here . It’s a new week, and so far it’s been great. It’s just Monday, but I feel this week is going to be amazing for both of us. Today, I’ll be sharing what my friend wrote( he is super amazing and even if I’d like to keep him all to myself, I love you, so I have to share) . Enjoy.

The Sunken Cost Fallacy

As humans, we are faced with choices every day from rising in the morning till we lay back at night. You might wonder what influences your decisions, the surface answer to that would be your knowledge of good and bad or our wants and needs. However, you would realize that your choices are usually attached to the degree of lose involved in a choice. That is why you would buy Bigi Cola of #100 rather than Coke when it was #150. You want quality but you weigh it against potential loss incurred. You don’t make rational decisions based on the future value of objects, investments and experiences. 

All human decisions have an element of uncertainty about the future. Therefore, the human brain makes decisions based on an automatic system for assess how to proceed when a potential for loss arises. Your decisions are attached to the emotional investments you accumulate, and the more you invest in something the harder it becomes to abandon it. That is the sunken cost fallacy. The fear of loss makes you to incur more loss.

Last week, I took an IQ test, on the 25th question of 30, I was about to stop cause the next was harder than the last. But I ‘had’ to finish the test because ‘I had come this far’ (time and energy invested). At the end of the test, I found out I had to pay $7 for the result. Without thinking twice, I closed it (my IQ doesn’t matter in heaven). On the flip side, if I had paid a small fee of say $3 at the beginning and I realised I had to pay another $4 for the result. There is a high chance I would have paid for it. At that point, I would not be thinking of the further $4 cost but the potential $3 loss. At the end of the day I would have paid the same $7.

The sunken cost fallacy pervades every aspect of human life. Are you actually addicted to gambling? or it’s just the sunken cost that keeps you in the loop. The sunken cost fallacy is the bedrock of the gaming industry, the more you play (time & energy, money invested), the more you have to play, to the extent where you are no longer enjoying it but you have to beata particular high score. In relationships, you know it is not working anymore, but you stay cause of the social capital involved. You have spent a year of your life making it work. You don’t return to it every time or stay in it to create good experiences and pleasant memories but to avoid the negative emotions you expect to feel if you accept the loss of time, effort, money or whatever else you have invested.

You know the loss lingers and grows in your mind, becoming bigger than it was when you first felt it. Whenever clinging to the past becomes a major factor in making decisions about your future, you run the risk of being derailed by the sunk cost fallacy. The fallacy prevents you from realizing the best choice is to do whatever promises the better experience in the future, not which negates the feeling of loss in the past.

At the end of the day, I believe nothing is ever watertight, these are not laws such as the fact that the sun rises from the East and sets in the West. However, there is an element of the sunken cost fallacy in everything we do. As human beings we have the gift of reflection and regret. We can predict a future place where we must admit our efforts were in vain, our losses permanent, and when we accept the truth it is going to hurt, but as they say, we move! Ciao.

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I told you it was worth the read ! Ughh🥺. Shout out to the writer , Olulewa, follow his twitter @victor_olulewa I sound like those radio anchors right now , but yes! My guy is amazing. See y’all tomorrow! (Last day of my 30 day blogging challenge 🥳)

Iyanu 😌