Sunk cost—the tendency to continue investing in something because of past investment rather than future value—shapes decisions across economics, psychology, and behavior. New research reveals how children develop this bias around age 6, while neuroscience explores the mental mechanisms behind it, with real-world applications from sports contracts to relationships.
·Behavioral experiments show kids don't exhibit sunk-cost bias until around age 6, suggesting it's a learned cognitive pattern
·Neuroscience research identifies the brain mechanisms driving the sunk cost effect and why people struggle to abandon past investments
·Baseball teams debate whether underperforming contracts represent sunk costs worth cutting versus commitments to honor
·Economic principles like sunk cost fallacy influence everyday choices from relationships to purchasing decisions without people realizing it
drawn from qz.com, Science X, 조선일보, American Enterprise Institute - AEI · updated 9h ago