Sunk Cost Fallacy | INFJ Forum

Sunk Cost Fallacy

Yes, just an hour ago.

1 yr old child, I BOUGHT PUREED MACARONI WITH PASTA CHUNKS BECAUSE YOU ARE LEARNING TO CHEW! YOU WILL FINISH THEM!

1 hr of screaming, tears, and being showered with macaroni with pasta chunks later...DONE.


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I think I fell victim to this with regards to leaving my last job. I guess I just feel responsible for the place running well wherever I work. That's not nearly a good enough reason to stay somewhere you hate though.

This kind of thing still fascinates me, people get in too deep and feel like it would be a waste of their time/effort/resources to walk away. Even when they definitely should.
 
I fall victim to this all the time. Particularly when it comes to relationships.
 
This is a very tough one. Espescially when it comes to education. One of my closest friends chose a field of study that a) isn't great in terms of employment prospects and b) he doesn't have huge passion for it. At least if he had that, he could become a scholar or something.

But it's very hard to back out and change track. He's an ENFJ as well and isn't particulary versed in thinking about himself, his decisions, future etc. He also suffers from analysis paralysis, trying to figure out the best way to move forward but then not actually doing anything. I fear he is gonna go the same path as his dad, who has a PhD in some pretty niche and useless discipline but is unemployed for last 20 years.

Life is hard if you mess up your education and don't have the luxury to inherit tons of money. You either need to be really brave and start from scratch or simply learn some additional skills on the side, or you can be stuck forever. Or even worse, you start comming up with some delusional business plans that almost never work and can put you and your family in even deeper pit.
 
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I definitely had this with my first relationship.

Maybe I currently have it with my studies, but I'm not sure. I don't experience it in the same way as that relationship, so it's not directly comparable.
 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment

Have you ever been the victim of this?

Do you guys have any interesting anecdotes on the subject?
Yes. Like LJ, Sass and Milk... with relationships.

The issue there is not so much about avoiding ego damage, but rather the default value we place upon other human beings.

If we tend to value people highly, and thus hold the view that everybody is worthy of maximal love/interest, &c., then we can be particularly vulnerable to this.

Having said that, when it comes to people, I'm not sure that we can ever speak of our investment in them in economic terms. Sure, often it collides with our self-interest, but in purely moral terms the investment in other human beings can't ever be described as a 'sunk cost'.
 
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