jacob wrote: Before taking on a project, the maximum barrier must thus be estimated first to avoid "getting stopped out".
Someone who has a low threshold is likely to give up at the first hint of trouble and will waste a lot of effort getting nowhere. Trite idioms like no pain, no gain can serve as a remember to not waste time on giving up too easily.
I completely agree, however this refers to things you haven't started. It will reduce the likelyhood of getting into the situation where you have started something you later come to realise may not have been worth it. However as you point out...
jacob wrote:
A big problem with many things is that while the rewards for completion are fairly well known, the costs aren't.
I do however disagree with the following.
jacob wrote:In particular in such cases, sunk costs aren't actually entirely sunk. Imagine you're inventing the light bulb. You may have to discover 999 ways that don't work before you discover the one that does work. 500 null results have value because it suggests that you're likely this much closer. Hence the further you go, the greater the likelihood of the reward. This is what makes it hard to give up if you're pretty far into the project. The cost is essentially not sunk until the project is abandoned because it makes the remaining cost of the reward that much lower.
Another example would be in climbing a mountain. If you're 10 meters from the top and don't feel like climbing anymore would you be more/less/same inclined to give up compared to still being at the foot of the mountain? What if you don't know exactly how high the mountain is except for a general idea? Still, you can subtract the distance you already climbed. It's not sunk.
I would argue that these costs are most definitely sunk. That is not to say that they have not provided value. In your mountain climbing example the effort to climb the, for example, 1490m to nearly get to the top has been expended. You may well have had a great day, enjoying the exercise and scenery, but you cannot recover that expended time and energy. Your decision on whether to continue the remaining 10m to the top will depend on what the reward of bagging a 1500m peak means to you. If it's an easy last 10m it may well be worth pushing yourself given that you valued climbing a 1500m hill enough to start it. You would be getting a 1500m peak for only 10m more effort. However...
theanimal wrote: But to continue with the mountain example..say you are close to the summit and the wind picks up or a storm rolls in. Would you continue? The logical answer utilizing risk assessment guidelines is no, yet many accidents/deaths happen each year because people decide to continue. Even though there is nothing wrong with turning back. They see the summit as the ultimate goal.
In this case you have to evaluate if the reward of a 1500m peak for a life-risking 10m climb is worth it. The previous 1490m doesn't make this last 10m any easier. I've made decisions both ways on the hills in these situations.
theanimal wrote: I think it becomes a lot more complex when the thing you are evaluating is a job, whether you should continue college/PHD etc. I like the ideas of considering purpose and length of time you have complained.
It does, but when you consider the purpose, you are evaluating the reward for continuing. Likewise the length of time you have complained gives an indication of the ongoing costs.
jennypenny wrote:How do other people factor into the decision? Very little of what we do is in isolation. What if you were climbing with someone else and felt like quitting. Would you let the other person down? What if they wanted to quit but you didn't?
An excellent point. Going back to hill climbing examples, I've been in the situation where I had enjoyed the day so much that completing the original planned route was no longer important to me, but I was pretty confident I was capable of it. However, I was with two companions, one of whom was determined to continue (and was willing to go it alone) and another who had picked up a minor injury and did not feel able to continue. That was a really tricky day and the situation really reduced my enjoyment. I ended up with a compromise whereby I saw the injured person back to a safe part of the climb, from which they started to descend, then returned to keep the continuing party in sight while they went on. I didn't feel I could complete it myself as that would have meant leaving someone already injured on the hill alone (the routes down were different). I still think that the person who wanted to continue was being unreasonable and selfish. It put us all in an akward situation, creating risk where there needed have been any. They either didn't understand the risks, valued the next peak a lot more than I did or simply had to continue at all costs.