Sensitivity to Sunk Costs Depends on Attention to the Delay

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Economics
• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• The WebSurf task simulates real-world foraging for information under time constraints.
• Previous research indicated humans treat delays economically, preferring shorter waits but accepting longer ones for more valued content.
• Attention's role in decision-making, particularly concerning sunk costs, remains an area for exploration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate economic decision-making in the WebSurf task within a large online sample.
• To examine the influence of attention during waiting periods on sunk cost susceptibility.
• To understand how cognitive processes like attention modulate re-evaluation and commitment to past investments.

Main Methods:

• Replication of the WebSurf task with human participants in a laboratory setting and via Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk).
• Manipulation of cognitive demands during the waiting period to assess attention's role.
• Inclusion of an attention check during the delay phase in a variant of the task.

Main Results:

• A majority of mTurk participants replicated laboratory findings of economic behavior in the WebSurf task.
• Participants demonstrated susceptibility to sunk costs, influenced by time already invested.
• Introducing an attention check increased economic behavior but eliminated sunk cost susceptibility.

Conclusions:

• Attention plays a critical role in modulating susceptibility to sunk costs.
• Cognitive processes, specifically attention deployment, are key drivers in re-evaluating decisions and overcoming sunk cost fallacies.
• Findings suggest potential interventions to mitigate sunk cost effects by manipulating attentional focus.