Name: Why Do We Go All In on Lost Causes?
Uploaded: 2019-07-26T08:27:13.000Z
Duration: 4 min 43 s

If you've ever gotten deep into a task and told yourself that you've come this far, so you may as well finish it, you've fallen prey to the sunk cost effect, more popularly known as the sunk cost fallacy.

如果你曾經深陷在一項任務中，並告訴自己，你已經走到了這一步，所以你不妨把它完成，你已經陷入了沉沒成本效應，更俗稱為沉沒成本謬誤。

to 不定詞

This is when you continue with some sort of effort once you've already invested time, money, or some other resource in it — even if you don't really want to go through with it.

這時，一旦你已經投入時間、金錢或其他資源，就會繼續進行某種努力--即使你並不真的想去做。

You've likely experienced this for yourself in everyday life.

在日常生活中，你很可能親身經歷過這種情況。

Like, you might have been more reluctant to resign from your miserable job since you'd been in it a few months.

就像，你可能更不願意辭去你那份悲慘的工作，因為你已經做了幾個月了。

Or maybe you've gone to a concert you didn't really want to since you'd already paid for the tickets.

或者你去聽了一場音樂會，但你並不想聽，因為你已經付了票錢。

Maybe you've even stayed in a rocky relationship since you've known the other person for years.

也許你甚至還停留在一段搖擺不定的關係中，因為你已經認識對方多年。

But while a lot of us have used sunk costs to justify our choices… it shouldn't make sense.

但是，雖然我們很多人都用沉沒成本來證明我們的選擇......但這應該是沒有意義的。

那麼，我們為什麼要這樣做呢？

Some of the research in this field comes from behavioral economists.

這個領域的一些研究來自行為經濟學家。

They view people as rational decision-makers who make choices based on the best use of finite resources like limited time or money.

他們認為人是理性的決策者，他們根據有限的時間或金錢等有限資源的最佳利用來做出選擇。

And they argue that a sunk cost is irrational.

而他們認為，沉沒成本是不合理的。

It shouldn't even be one of the factors that influences your decision.

它甚至不應該是影響你決定的因素之一。

That's because you've already expended time, effort, or money in it and it's no longer an available resource to choose from.

那是因為你已經在其中花費了時間、精力或金錢，它已經不是一個可供選擇的資源了。

Yet people aren't robots — we're not always flawlessly rational actors.

然而人不是機器人--我們並不總是完美無瑕的理性行動者。

And the more we've invested in a sunk cost, the more likely we are to commit to it.

而我們在沉沒成本上投入的越多，我們就越有可能投入它。

A 1990 study in The Journal of Applied Psychology examined this idea using 407 undergraduate business students.

1990年《應用心理學雜誌》的一項研究用407名商科大學生研究了這一觀點。

Researchers asked if the students would decide to continue a project when they found out they had been outdone by their competitor, given that some amount of money had already been spent on it.

研究人員詢問學生，當他們發現自己的項目被競爭對手超越時，既然已經花了一些錢，他們是否會決定繼續進行這個項目。

The study found that the more money had already been spent on the project, the more likely people would continue to spend money on it.

研究發現，已經在項目上花的錢越多，人們越有可能繼續在項目上花錢。

This tendency to keep committing to a less desirable situation is known as escalation of commitment, and often goes hand-in-hand with sunk cost effects.

這種不斷向不太理想的情況做出承諾的傾向被稱為承諾升級，往往與沉沒成本效應相伴而生。

So why exactly do we go all in on lost causes?

那麼，我們到底為什麼要全身心地投入到迷途的事業中去呢？

It turns out there's not really one explanation for why.

One major theory is based on self-justification.

一個主要的理論是基於自我辯護。

It's the idea that you commit to a sunk cost because you don't want to admit that you made a bad investment — either to others or to yourself.

這就是你承諾沉沒成本的想法，因為你不想承認你做了一個錯誤的投資--無論是對別人還是對自己。

A group from Ohio University published a study in 1985 on the psychology of sunk cost.

俄亥俄大學的一個小組在1985年發表了一項關於沉沒成本心理學的研究。

In one of the experiments in this study, 81 college students from Ohio and Oregon were presented with a scenario in which they owned a printing business.

在本研究的一個實驗中，來自俄亥俄州和俄勒岡州的81名大學生被提出了一個擁有印刷企業的情景。

Their competitor had just gone broke and offered to sell them their super-fast printing press for super cheap.

他們的競爭對手剛剛破產，提出要把他們的超快印刷機以超低價賣給他們。

But in the scenario, participants had just bought a new, slower, more expensive press.

但在該方案中，參與者剛剛買了一臺新的、速度較慢、價格較高的印刷機。

People who said no to the cheap, fast new press gave reasons like“I already have a good, new press for a lot of money,”which suggested they didn't want to look like they'd wasted resources.

那些拒絕廉價、快速的新印刷機的人給出的理由是："我已經有了一臺好的、新的印刷機，花了很多錢"，這說明他們不想讓人覺得他們浪費了資源。

Other studies have postulated that the sunk cost effect can be explained by loss aversion.

其他研究認為，沉沒成本效應可以用損失規避來解釋。

That's the idea that losses are much more psychologically impactful than gains of the same size.

那就是損失比同樣大小的收益對心理的影響要大得多。

For example, you'd probably prefer the idea of not losing $100 to winning $100.

比如，你可能更願意選擇不輸100元，而不是贏100元。

So people would rather allocate more time and money to a sunk cost because they just may turn the situation around, rather than stop trying because they know that the loss is inevitable.

所以，人們寧願把更多的時間和金錢分配到沉沒成本上，因為他們只是可能扭轉局面，而不是因為知道損失不可避免而停止努力。

Plenty of other theories have been put forth over the years.

這些年來，還有很多其他理論被提出來。

For example, one 2007 study suggested that people pursue sunk costs because they don't want to regret giving up.

例如，2007年的一項研究表明，人們追求沉沒成本是因為不想後悔放棄。

And some researchers have argued that no one theory fits everything.

而一些研究者認為，沒有一種理論能適合一切。

One study published in 1992 found plenty of support for the self-justification idea, but also suggested that other theories might better explain sunk-cost behavior in specific cases.

1992年發表的一項研究發現，自圓其說的想法得到了大量的支持，但同時也提出，其他理論可能更好地解釋特定情況下的沉沒成本行為。

Furthermore, a number of factors can potentially influence whether you still go in on a sunk cost.

此外，很多因素都有可能影響到你是否還去沉澱成本。

They could include how personally responsible you feel for your original decision to invest, whether your sunk-cost behavior is being observed by an audience, and even whether you're making a decision as an individual or a group.

它們可能包括你個人對你最初的投資決定有多大的責任感，你的沉沒成本行為是否被觀眾觀察到，甚至你是作為個人還是團體來做決定。

One study published in Psychological Science in 2018 has even suggested that you don't have to incur the sunk cost yourself to feel the pressure.

2018年發表在《心理科學》上的一項研究甚至表明，你不必自己承擔沉沒成本，也能感受到壓力。

In one experiment, participants were more likely to say that a fictional character named Agatha should keep playing the cello if her husband had paid a lot for her initial lessons, rather than if he had paid little.

在一個實驗中，參與者更有可能說，如果一個叫阿加莎的虛構人物的丈夫為她最初的課程支付了很多錢，而不是他支付了很少的錢，她應該繼續拉大提琴。

No matter what the explanation, though, sunk costs are still sunk costs.

不過不管怎麼解釋，沉沒成本還是沉沒成本。

那麼，我們該如何避免它們呢？

One researcher, a clinical professor of psychology at Weill-Cornell Medical School, has suggested that you should take a step back, let go of any judgments, and think about your situation.

有一位研究者，是威爾-康奈爾醫學院的心理學臨床教授，他建議你應該後退一步，放下任何判斷，想想自己的處境。

For example, are you missing out on other opportunities because you're committed to this one thing?

比如，你是否因為致力於這一件事而錯過了其他機會？

If you saw someone else doing the same thing, what would you tell them to do?

如果你看到別人也在做同樣的事情，你會告訴他們怎麼做？

The thing is, even if you've put so much time and effort in, it just may be worth it to let it go in the end.

問題是，即使你付出了那麼多的時間和精力，最後放手一搏可能也是值得的。

After all, that's another way of finishing it.

畢竟，這也是另一種完成方式。

Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych, and thanks to our awesome patrons for supporting us.

感謝觀看本期科普心理節目，也感謝我們超讚的贊助人對我們的支持。

If you want to help us do what we do here, check out patreon.com/scishow.

如果你想幫助我們在這裡做什麼，請訪問patreon.com/scishow。