Sunk Cost and Commitment to Medical Treatment

The influence of prior, irretrievable, investment (sunk cost) on commitment to medical treatment was investigated. Three studies were run investigating the influence of sunk cost in the form of money, time, and effort. A total of 637 participants (314 male) with a mean age of 19.58 years were recruited from an undergraduate population. A computer program simulated the process of arranging a course of physiotherapy. Participants invested one of three amounts of sunk cost (under budget, on budget, or over budget) into arranging sessions with a chiropractor. Participants then decided how much time they wished to commit to these chiropractor sessions or to an alternative treatment with a better chance of success. Results revealed a significant effect of invested money, a significant effect of invested effort, but no effect of invested time. Invested money produced a sunk cost effect, while invested effort appeared to exert influence via cognitive dissonance. The implications for healthcare decision-making are discussed.     

Sunk Cost and Commitment to Dates Arranged Online

The influence of prior, irretrievable, investment (sunk cost) on commitment to a date arranged online was investigated. Participants were recruited from an undergraduate population. There were 145 participants (86 female) with a mean age of 19.42 years. Participants took part in a computer simulation of the process of arranging a date online. Participants invested one of five amounts of sunk cost into this process. Participants were then presented with the choice of attending the date arranged online or attending a (superior) blind date. Participants chose how much time that they wanted to commit to the (inferior) date arranged online. Results revealed a significant sunk cost effect (p = 0.003). The implications of the sunk cost effect having an influence over human relationships are discussed.     

沉没成本效应中的心理学问题

沉没成本效应是一种常见的非理性行为。本文从心理学角度对其进行了系统地介绍。文章概括了沉没成本及沉没成本效应的定义,沉没成本的种类和发生领域,并用心理学理论对沉没成本效应进行了解释。此外．文章还讨论了沉没成本的逆效应以及影响沉没成本效应的主要因素。     

沉没成本效应的产生根源与影响因素

沉没成本效应是指决策者的决策行为因受沉没成本影响而产生的一种非理性决策现象。针对这一决策偏差的产生根源,研究者从认知、动机和神经三个角度提出了解释。沉没成本效应的影响因素包括沉没成本特性、情境因素、个体差异和文化差异等。基于先前研究存在的问题和不足,沉没成本效应的未来研究应着眼于改进研究方法,探究产生根源,关注行为沉没成本和加强应用研究。     

Roles of Religious Commitment,Emotion Regulation and Social Support in Preoperative Anxiety

Surgery is a relatively commonplace medical procedure in healthcare settings. The mental health status of the person undergoing surgery is vital, but there is dearth of empirical studies on the mental health status of surgery patients, particularly with regard to the factors associated with anxiety in surgical conditions. This study investigated the roles of religious commitment, emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) and social support in preoperative anxiety in a sample of 210 surgical inpatients from a Nigerian tertiary healthcare institution. A cross-sectional design was adopted. Before the surgery, respondents completed the state anxiety subscale of State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Religious Commitment Inventory, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. After controlling for relevant demographic factors, regression results showed that cognitive reappraisal, social support and interpersonal religious commitment were negatively associated with preoperative anxiety, while expressive suppression was positively associated with preoperative anxiety. The emotion regulation strategies made robust and significant explanation of variance in preoperative anxiety. Appropriate interventions to promote interpersonal religious commitment, encourage cognitive reappraisal and enhance social support quality may improve mental health outcomes in surgery.

     

Escalation and De-escalation of Commitment in Response to Sunk Costs: The Role of Budgeting in Mental Accounting

Research has traditionally assumed that people increase investment (or "escalate commitment") in response to previous investments (sunk costs). This paper presents several demonstrations which show that people will incorrectly de-escalate investment in response to sunk costs. I propose that people set mental budgets to control their resource expenditures: they set a budget for a class of expenses and track their investments against their budget. A lab study with real monetary incentives shows support for de-escalation and supports a specific rule for how people set budgets - based on the breakeven of total costs and total benefits. The budgeting process suggests that people are only likely to escalate commitment when they fail to set a budget or when expenses are difficult to track. The later part of the paper organizes the previous literature on escalation around these processes and provides additional experiments to illustrate each point. For example, I argue that previous demonstrations that have shown errors of escalation exclusively involve "incidental" investments that are difficult to track. A study in the current paper shows that people are more willing to invest time than money to salvage a monetary sunk cost and more willing to invest money than time to salvage a sunk cost of time, even when the time and money investments are of equal value. The paper concludes by discussing the rationality of escalation and de-escalation.     

关于成本沉没效应的实验研究

运用IAT 技术,通过实验,证明“损失厌恶”具有内隐性,“损失厌恶”存在内隐偏差,并且二者具有很强的稳定性,即不受当前情绪及刺激材料性质等的影响,为进一步认识成本沉没效应等现象的本质特点提供了证据。     

Sunk Cost Effects: The Influences of Instruction and Future Return Estimates

Normative principles imply that decision makers′ choices should be affected solely by the prospective future consequences of the options. Previous work, however, has demonstrated the occurrence of sunk cost effects, whereby decision makers are reluctant to abandon options in which they have made prior investments. The present research shows that, contrary to earlier findings, there exist conditions under which sunk cost effects are reduced significantly by instruction in pertinent economic principles. Additional findings indicate that sunk cost effects are mitigated by an important factor that is often present in real-world decision situations but omitted in most sunk cost research paradigms-explicit estimates of the future returns the given options might yield. Theoretical and practical implications are developed and discussed, including possibly common ambiguities about what normative sunk costs principles imply and how they should be applied.     

Commitment,ego-involvement,and resistance to attack

Subjects with initially extreme or moderate positions (based on a median split) recorded a consonant speech under public, private, or no commitment and later received a strong, mild, or no attack on their position. Extremes were more ego-involved in terms of wider latitudes of rejection, narrower latitudes of non-commitment, and greater resistance to attack, relative to moderates. Commitment had no effect for extremes, suggesting a ceiling effect on changes in the latitudes and resistance to attack for initially high levels of ego-involvement. For moderates, commitment resulted in narrower latitudes of noncommitment, wider latitudes of rejection (greater rejection of discrepant positions), and greater resistance to attack, suggesting that commitment may elevate ego-involvement with the issue. Commitment and ego-involvement may increase the salience of one's attitude position in later situations, thereby increasing the probability of attitudeconsistent behavior.     

Beliefs About Emotion: Links to Emotion Regulation,Well-Being,and Psychological Distress

People differ in their implicit beliefs about emotions. Some believe emotions are fixed (entity theorists), whereas others believe that everyone can learn to change their emotions (incremental theorists). We extend the prior literature by demonstrating (a) entity beliefs are associated with lower well-being and increased psychological distress, (b) people's beliefs about their own emotions explain greater unique variance than their beliefs about emotions in general, and (3) implicit beliefs are linked with well-being/distress via cognitive reappraisal. These results suggest people's implicit beliefs—particularly about their own emotions—may predispose them toward emotion regulation strategies that have important consequences for psychological health.     

Let It Go: Positive Affect Attenuates Sunk Cost Bias by Enhancing Cognitive Flexibility

Sunk cost bias is a pervasive problem in consumer decision making. It occurs when people continue to invest resources toward unsuccessful outcomes merely because they previously invested in them. This tendency exists because people devote too much attention to prior investments without considering how other factors may impact their decision outcome. While many suggested interventions to attenuate sunk cost bias involve altering cognitive processes, we examine an alternate affective route. Specifically, we propose that inducing positive affect attenuates sunk cost bias by naturally facilitating flexible thought processes. Across four studies, using hypothetical and real decision tasks, we find that positive affect induced in three different ways consistently attenuates sunk cost bias involving money, time, and effort investments. Further, we demonstrate that this occurs because people experiencing positive affect have enhanced cognitive flexibility. They consider more relevant decision factors and perceive sunk cost as having less of an influence on their decision outcomes. Then, in a fifth study, we show that a thought intervention promoting flexibility can attenuate consumers’ suboptimal commitment tendency in a field setting.     

Dedicating Time to Volunteering: Values,Engagement, and Commitment to Beneficiaries

A moderated mediation model was developed to explain the variation in the amount of time volunteers dedicate to their chosen voluntary cause. Data from 534 volunteers of an international aid and development agency in the United Kingdom revealed a positive relationship between prosocial values and time spent volunteering. The results also show that volunteer engagement fully mediated the relationship between the value motive and time spent volunteering, and the strength of the mediated effect varied as a function of volunteers' commitment to beneficiaries. These findings provide a new perspective on the link between volunteers' motivation and active participation in volunteer activities. Implications for practice and future research directions are discussed.     

Commitment, choice and self-control

When offered a choice (Choice Y) between a small immediate reward (2-sec exposure to grain) and a large reward (4-sec exposure to grain) delayed by 4 sec, pigeons invariably preferred the small, immediate reward. However, when offered a choice (Choice X) between a delay of T seconds followed by Choice Y and a delay of T seconds followed by restriction to the large delayed reward only, the pigeon's choice depended on T. When T was small, the pigeons chose the alternative leading to Choice Y (and then chose the small, immediate reward). When T was large, the pigeons chose the alternative leading to the large delayed reward only. The reversal of preference as T increases is predicted by several recent models for choice between various amounts and delays of reward. The preference for the large delayed alternative with long durations of T parallels everyday instances of advance commitment to a given course of action. Such commitment may be seen as a prototype for self-control.     

Job Satisfaction,Organizational Commitment,and Religious Commitment of Full-Time University Employees

This study investigated the relationship of job satisfaction and organizational and religious commitment among full time workers at Akra University (a pseudonym) based on a number of demographic factors. Analysis of variance using the Games-Howell procedure revealed that workers who were older than age 46 years had higher job satisfaction and organizational and religious commitment than younger employees. It was also noted that workers holding doctoral degrees had higher levels of job satisfaction and religious commitment than individuals with a high school diploma only. It was evident that the longer employees stayed at this institution, the higher the levels of organizational commitment and extrinsic job satisfaction, and administrators and sector managers had higher levels of intrinsic job satisfaction and religious commitment than those in other occupational areas.     

Emotion Regulation in Adolescent Well-Being and Positive Education

Emotion regulation (ER) becomes increasingly important across adolescent development, and promotes psychological flexibility, resilience and well-being in youth. Positive education programs (PEPs) combine academic training with positive psychology interventions (PPIs) to increase well-being and reduce mental ill-health. Despite considerable overlap between PPIs and ER models, the role and relevance of ER to PEPs remains unclear. This review aimed to evaluate the relationship of ER to PEPs targeting adolescents. First, to evaluate the relationship of ER to domains of well-being targeted by school-based PPIs. Second, to examine whether school-based PPIs can improve adolescents’ ER capacity. Third, to evaluate the role of ER in well-being outcomes of PEPs. Results support the relevance of ER to domains of well-being outlined by the revised PERMA model, including positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and health. ER can influence the degree to which students benefit from PEP participation. It remains to be determined whether ER capacity is improved as a result of exposure to positive education programs. Findings are limited by the small and heterogeneous group of interventions examined, and the use of inconsistent ER measures. Further research of the role of ER in positive education may contribute to greater understanding of the mechanisms underlying their effectiveness and further promote the psychological well-being of adolescents.     

Identity Structure,Narrative Accounts,and Commitment to a Volunteer Role

Degree of commitment was explored in relation to core self and role-identity. Thirty-one American emergency medical technicians (EMTs) described themselves in the EMT role (EMT now) and the way they anticipated they would be in the future (EMT future) by selecting items from an adjective checklist. Participants also described “real me,” “ideal me,” and “ought me.” Ratings of commitment and extranormative activity were also obtained. Finally, participants described a positive and a negative episode they had experienced as an EMT in an open-ended question that was coded for task and relational content. Each participant's checklist data set was individually analyzed using HICLAS, a clustering algorithm for binary data (P. DeBoeck, S. Rosenberg, & I. Van Mechelen, 1993). Results indicate that the similarity between EMT now and real me best predicted activity and the similarity between EMT future and real me best predicted commitment (positive correlations in both cases). Older, more experienced EMTs tended to describe positive episodes in relational terms, whereas younger, less experienced EMTs described positive experiences in task-oriented terms.     

奎因、怀曼与布里丹:本体论约定的三种方法

本文对本体论约定(ontological commitment)问题的三种根本不同方法进行了比较。认为尽管它们具有表面上的相似性,但中世纪晚期的唯名论哲学家布里丹(约1300-1361)的方法,是比以迈农和奎因为代表的其他两种被普遍认同的现代方法更具吸引力的第三种选择。本文同时指出,只有基于其关于真与逻辑有效性的语义观念的截然不同的前现代方法,布里丹的方法才是可能的。