Sunk Cost Bias. Do you ever suffer from it? Of course you do. Just about everyone does.
Sunk cost bias is the tendency to continue doing something no matter how poorly it’s going once you’ve invested time and money…the unwillingness to cut your losses and find a better solution. Think about how difficult it is to stop a project that is well over budget and still has no successful end in sight.
Once you invest significant time and effort into something it influences how you think. Essentially, the actions you have already taken bias you towards being stuck in the past and unable to think about the best decision based on the current situation. You’re unable to focus on the present and what now is the right thing to do.
The wasted effort, and the less than optimal results, led Wharton Professor Sigal Barsade and INSEAD Professors Andrew Hafenbrack and Zoe Kinias to wonder if meditation and mindfulness would help lead to better decisions. The result is, “Debiasing the Mind through Meditation: Mindfulness and the Sunk-Cost Bias” published in Psychological Science.
The professors devised experiments using short time focused breathing to engender a mindfulness state. They discovered that a short break to focus the mind through meditation led to more focus on the present and the current situation and thus better decision making.
A brief time out before making a decision leads to less biased decision making and thus better decisions. That comment we’ve all heard, “take a deep breath before saying anything”, in fact turns out to be of real value in all decision making. It actually does lead to better results.
The research shows that a brief break leads to a big result. According to Barsade, “it changes your cognitive state and your mood, both of which change your decision making.”
When you find yourself having to change your thinking, make decisions, or just think in a less biased way for any reason…do a bit of meditation first. Breathing before deciding, the key to better decisions.