Catherine Blumer
Catherine Blumer is the co-author, with Hal Arkes, of the 1985 paper that turned the sunk cost effect into an experimental programme: ten studies, including the Ohio University Theater field experiment, in which the first sixty buyers of a season ticket were sold, at random, the full-price ticket or one of two discounted ones, and attendance was then counted play by play.
Who they are
Beyond that paper, nothing about her career has been established here, and this page says so rather than filling the gap. No affiliation, dates or later work are asserted.
She has a page because the house rule is that co-authors are named properly rather than disappearing into an "and colleagues". The paper is routinely cited as Arkes and Blumer and then discussed as though Arkes wrote it alone.
Key papers
Arkes, H. R., & Blumer, C. (1985). "The psychology of sunk cost", Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 35(1), 124 to 140. Second author. Ten experiments, including the theatre season-ticket field study.
Key ideas
The paper is the origin of the experimental literature, not just the first demonstration. Ten studies in one place, across laboratory and field settings, is what made the effect a research programme.
The theatre study's real shape is the part popular writing drops. Those who had paid full price went to more plays over the first half of the season, and the difference had vanished by the second half. The effect lasted about six months and then stopped, and the widely quoted figure for how much more often full-price buyers attended comes from the first half only.
Their proposed motive is the desire not to appear wasteful, which is the account carried on this site at Waste Aversion. They argued explicitly that the effect could not be folded entirely into the social-psychological theories available at the time.
One result from the same paper cuts the other way. Their tenth experiment found that training in economics made no difference to the error, including among students taught about sunk cost by the professor handing them the questionnaire. That sits against later claims that people with economics training walk away more readily, and this site keeps both on the record.
Concepts on this site
Sunk Cost Fallacy, the effect their paper established as a programme
Waste Aversion, the motive they proposed
The Concorde Fallacy, the animal-behaviour version of the same question
Sources
- Arkes, H. R., & Blumer, C. (1985). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 35(1), 124 to 140. Full text read in the vault, 2026-09-02.
- Vault record, 2026-09-11. No affiliation, dates or later work established; none asserted.