Abstract
The sunk-cost fallacy is a decision-making bias that reflects the tendency to invest more future resources in a situation in which a prior investment has been made, as compared with a similar situation in which a prior investment has not been made (e.g., the tendency to spend more time watching a boring movie one paid to watch than to watch a boring, but free, movie). Most research on this fallacy has been conducted with college students (Arkes & Ayton, 1999). Although a growing number of studies have investigated the sunk-cost fallacy in children, adolescents (Klaczynski, 2001), and nonhuman animals (Navarro & Fantino, 2005), no research has investigated whether older adults are less likely than younger adults to commit the sunk-cost fallacy (cf. Bruine de Bruin, Parker, & Fischhoff, 2007). Drawing from prior research on age differences in negativity and positivity biases in information processing, we hypothesized that older adults would be less likely than younger adults to commit the sunk-cost fallacy.