The sunk cost fallacy is a cognitive bias in which people persist with a decision that is no longer optimal because of previous resources they have invested (now considered to be spent or “sunk”). Most of us will have heard sunk costs reflected in the saying “throwing good money after bad”, but sunk costs can, in theory, occur more broadly, whether for money, time or any other resource-limited investment. The sunk cost effect for money has been widely studied and appears robust; in contrast, the sunk cost effect for time is more uncertain, and is potentially moderated by the age of respondents (and likely resource availability), the fact that time is irreplaceable, and the tendency for people to account for time less easily than they do for money. In an impactful study, Soman (2001) found that the sunk cost effect for time was indeed weaker than for money, although this finding has not been widely replicated.

 

In the current study, Petrov et al. (2023) propose a replication of three studies from Soman (2001), asking whether sunk costs are weaker for time than for money, and then testing whether the relative absence of a sunk time cost arises from the inability of participants to account for time or due to more rational beliefs in the evaluation of past time investments.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).
 
URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/65htv

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA. 
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:

 

 

1. Soman, D. (2001). The mental accounting of sunk time costs: Why time is not like money. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making,14, 169-185. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.370

 

2. Petrov, N. B., Chan, Y. K., Lau, C. N., Kwok, T. H., Chow, L. C., Lo, W. Y. V, Song W., & Feldman, G. (2023). Sunk cost effects for time versus money: Replication of Soman (2001) [Registered Report Stage 1], in principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/u34zb