I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this, but I don't see how example #11 in the "Skill 1: Noticing Sunk Costs" PDF is an actual example of the sunk cost fallacy.

Ellery's options are to eat the slightly-burnt soup, or not to eat and instead to spend $12 (and, presumably, some cooking time) to replace the damaged soup with good soup and eat that instead. She has to eat something (again, presumably); the option to simply abandon the sunk cost, by discarding the soup and then eating nothing, seems implausible. In other words, her decision whether to eat or not eat the soup directly affects her future financial situation, and her decision is based on that effect.

Am I misunderstanding something?

EDIT: Of course it's possible that the negative utility Ellery would get from eating untasty soup outweighs the positive utility from eating at all plus the value of $12, but in any case the question concerns future utility, right?

(My apologies if this is a thread derail.)