ERIC Number: EJ1233818
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0022-0485
EISSN: N/A
The Psychology of Sunk Cost: A Classroom Experiment
Sirois, Louis-Philippe
Journal of Economic Education, v50 n4 p398-409 2019
Economics and business students are taught that sunk costs are irrelevant to their decisions. Yet, there is ample evidence that managers fail to integrate this simple rule and fall prey to what is known as the sunk-costs bias. To mitigate cognitive biases, such as the sunk-cost bias, educators must raise students' awareness of these common judgment errors. In this article, the author proposes a classroom activity that actively engages students and allows them to identify this bias in their own judgments. The activity builds on a series of experiments from the psychology literature. The author discusses how these experiments have been adapted for classroom use and presents evidence suggesting that the activity increased students' awareness of the sunk-cost bias and improved their decision-making skills.
Descriptors: Economics Education, Business Administration Education, Costs, Decision Making, Skill Development, Teaching Methods, Psychology, Consciousness Raising, Active Learning, Audience Response Systems, Class Activities, Student Attitudes, Bias
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive; Tests/Questionnaires
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A