The sunk cost and Concorde effects: Are humans less rational than lower animals?
Arkes and Ayton examine a puzzle. Adult humans routinely honour sunk costs, continuing an endeavour because of what has already been spent. Animals are widely said to do the same, under the name Concorde fallacy, and young children are assumed to be worse reasoners than adults. The authors argue both assumptions are wrong: there are no unambiguous demonstrations of the fallacy in animals, and children placed in equivalent situations behave more correctly than adults do. That reverses the usual developmental story, since a bias that increases with age and sophistication cannot be a primitive failure of reasoning. Their explanation is that adults have learned a generally useful rule, do not waste, and apply it past the point where it helps, so the error is an overextension of a good heuristic rather than an absence of one. This vault cites it as the best available account of why the effect exists at all.
Arkes and Ayton examine a puzzle. Adult humans routinely honour sunk costs, continuing an endeavour because of what has already been spent. Animals are widely said to do the same, under the name Concorde fallacy, and young children are assumed to be worse reasoners than adults. The authors argue both assumptions are wrong: there are no unambiguous demonstrations of the fallacy in animals, and children placed in equivalent situations behave more correctly than adults do. That reverses the usual developmental story, since a bias that increases with age and sophistication cannot be a primitive failure of reasoning. Their explanation is that adults have learned a generally useful rule, do not waste, and apply it past the point where it helps, so the error is an overextension of a good heuristic rather than an absence of one. This vault cites it as the best available account of why the effect exists at all.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
No unambiguous instances in lower animals; young children behave more normatively than adults. Abstract only.
Where we use it
- Why You Finish the Series You Stopped Enjoying, Why We Act
Reliability of this reference
The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.125.5.591
DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.125.5.591