gwern comments on Is Sunk Cost Fallacy a Fallacy? - Less Wrong

19 Post author: gwern 04 February 2012 04:33AM

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Comment author: gwern 09 February 2012 01:26:11AM 1 point [-]

Take Thaler's example: I don't see why a desire to learn would motivate someone to go to a football game in a blizzard

You'd learn more what it's like to go in a blizzard - maybe it's not so bad. (Personally, I've gone to football games in non-blizzards and learned that it is bad.) If you knew in this specific instance, drawn from all the incidents in your life, that you wouldn't learn anything, then you've already learned what you can and sunk cost oughtn't enter into it. It's hard to conclude very much from answers to hypothetical questions.

seems consistent with many different theories of sunk costs, including the theory that it's a bias which people can learn to avoid as they gain more experience with a type of decision.

Any result is consistent with an indefinite number of theories, as we all know. The results fit very neatly with a learning theory, and much more uncomfortably with things like self-justification.