Understanding decisions about sunk costs from older and younger adults' perspectives

Journals of Gerontology - Series B Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences

Volumn 66 B, Issue 6, 2011, Pages 681-686

  Strough, Jonell ^a   Schlosnagle, Leo ^a   Didonato, Lisa ^a  

^a WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Aging; Decision making; Goals; Individual differences; Sunk costs

Indexed keywords

ADULT; AGED; ARTICLE; ATTITUDE TO HEALTH; COMPARATIVE STUDY; DECISION MAKING; ECONOMICS; FEMALE; HUMAN; HUMAN RELATION; INCOME; INVESTMENT; LIFESTYLE; MALE; ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT; QUESTIONNAIRE; STATISTICS;

ADULT; AGED; AGED, 80 AND OVER; ATTITUDE TO HEALTH; DECISION MAKING; FEMALE; HUMANS; INCOME; INTERGENERATIONAL RELATIONS; INVESTMENTS; LIFE STYLE; MALE; PLANNING TECHNIQUES; QUESTIONNAIRES; YOUNG ADULT;

EID: 80054900263     PISSN: 10795014     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/geronb/gbr057     Document Type: Review

References (30)

1. Arkes, H. R., & Ayton, P. (1999). The sunk cost and Concorde effects: Are humans less rational than lower animals? Psychological Bulletin, 125, 591-600. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.125.5.591.
2. Arkes, H. R., & Blumer, C. (1985). The psychology of sunk cost. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 35, 124-140. doi:10.1016/0749-5978(85)90049-4.
3. Baumeister, R., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5, 323-370. doi:10.1037//1089-2680.5.4.323. (Pubitemid 33680154)
4. Berg, C. A., & Strough, J. (2010). Problem solving across the life span. In K. Fingerman, C. A. Berg, T. Antonnuci & J. Smith (Eds.), Handbook of life span psychology (pp. 239-265). New York, NY: Springer.
5. Berg, C. A., Strough, J., Calderone, K. S., Sansone, C., & Weir, C. (1998). The role of problem definitions in understanding age and context effects on strategies for solving everyday problems. Psychology and Aging, 13, 29-44. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.13.1.29. (Pubitemid 28177442)
6. Bruine De Bruin, W., Parker, A. M., & Fischhoff, B. (2007). Individual differences in adult decision-making competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 938-956. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.92.5.938.
7. Bruine de Bruin, W., Parker, A. M., & Fischhoff, B. (2010). Explaining adult age differences in decision-making competence. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. Advance online publication. doi:10.1002/bdm.712.
8. Carstensen, L. L. (2006). The influence of a sense of time on human development. Science, 312, 1913-1915. doi:10.1126/science.1127488. (Pubitemid 43993710)
9. Frisch, D. (1993). Reasons for framing effects. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 54, 399-429. doi:10.1006/obhd.1993.1017.
10. Fung, H. H., & Carstensen, L. L. (2004). Motivational changes in response to blocked goals and foreshortened time: Testing alternatives to socioemotional selectivity theory. Psychology and Aging, 19, 68-78. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.19.1.68. (Pubitemid 38338266)
11. Heilbroner, R. L., & Thurow, L. C. (1981). Understanding microeconomics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
12. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47, 263-291.
13. Kim, S., Goldstein, D., Hasher, L., & Zacks, R. T. (2005). Framing effects in younger and older adults. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 60, 215-218. doi:10.1093/geronb/60. 4.P215.
14. King, L. A. (2004). The use of qualitative data in social and personality psychology. In C. Sansone, C. C. Morf & A. T. Panter (Eds.), The Sage handbook of methods in social psychology (pp. 173-194). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
15. Klaczynski, P. (2001). Framing effects on adolescent task representations, analytic and heuristic processing, and decision making. Implications for the normative/descriptive gap. Applied Developmental Psychology, 22, 289-309. doi:10.1016/S0193-3973(01)00085-5. (Pubitemid 33622926)
16. Mata, R., Schooler, L. J., & Rieskamp, J. (2007). The aging decision maker: Cognitive aging and the adaptive selection of decision-making strategies. Psychology and Aging, 22, 796-810. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.19.3.482. (Pubitemid 351173590)
17. Mather, M., & Knight, M. (2005). Goal-directed memory: The role of cognitive control in older adults' emotional memory. Psychology and Aging, 20, 554-570. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.20.4.554. (Pubitemid 43119628)
18. Mikels, J. A., & Reed, A. E. (2009). Monetary losses do not loom large in later life: Age differences in the framing effect. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 64, 457-460. doi:10.1093/geronb/gbp043.
19. Molden, D. C., & Hui, C. M. (2011). Promoting de-escalation of commitment: A regulatory-focus perspective on sunk costs. Psychological Science, 22, 8-12. doi:10.1177/0956797610390386.
20. Peters, E., Hess, T. H., Västfjäll, & Auman, C. (2007). Adult age differences in dual information processes. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 1-23. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00025.x.
21. Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2004). SPSS and SAS procedures for estimating indirect effects in simple mediation models. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 36, 717-731. doi:10.3758/BF03206553. (Pubitemid 40251423)
22. Soman, D. (2004). Framing, loss aversion, and mental accounting. In D. J. Koehler & N. Harvey (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of judgment and decision making (pp. 379-398). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
23. Strough, J., & Diriwächter, R. (2000). Dyad gender differences in preadolescents' creative stories. Sex Roles, 43, 43-60. doi:10.1023/A: 1007087628278.
24. Strough, J., Mehta, C. M., McFall, J. P., & Schuller, K. L. (2008). Are older adults less subject to the sunk-cost fallacy than younger adults? Psychological Science, 19, 650-652. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.02138.x.
25. Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
26. van Putten, M., Zeelenberg, M., & van Dijk, E. (2010). Who throws good money after bad? Action vs. state orientation moderates the sunk cost fallacy. Judgment and Decision Making, 5, 33-36.
27. Volpp, K. G., John, L. K., Troxel, A. B., Norton, L., Fassbender, J., & Loewenstein, G. (2008). Financial incentive-based approaches for weight loss. Journal of the American Medical Association, 300, 2631-2637. doi:10.1001/jama.2008.804.
28. Weller, J. A., Levin, I. P., & Denburg, N. L. (2009). Trajectory of adaptive decision making for risky gains and losses from ages 5 to 85. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 22, 1-14. doi: 10.1002/bdm.690.
29. Wilson, T. D., & Dunn, E. W. (2004). Self-knowledge: Its limits, values, and potential for improvement. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 493-518. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.141954.
30. Wood, S., Busemeyer, J., Koling, A., Cox, C., & Davis, H. (2005). Older adults as adaptive decision makers: Evidence from the Iowa gambling task. Psychology and Aging, 20, 220-225. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.20.2 (Pubitemid 41023402)