IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v75y2012i1p186-192.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessment of the sunk-cost effect in clinical decision-making

Author

Listed:
  • Braverman, Jennifer A.
  • Blumenthal-Barby, J.S.

Abstract

Despite the current push toward the practice of evidence-based medicine and comparative effectiveness research, clinicians' decisions may be influenced not only by evidence, but also by cognitive biases. A cognitive bias describes a tendency to make systematic errors in certain circumstances based on cognitive factors rather than evidence. Though health care providers have been shown in several studies to be susceptible to a variety of types of cognitive biases, research on the role of the sunk-cost bias in clinical decision-making is extremely limited. The sunk-cost bias is the tendency to pursue a course of action, even after it has proved to be suboptimal, because resources have been invested in that course of action. This study explores whether health care providers' medical treatment recommendations are affected by prior investments in a course of treatment. Specifically, we surveyed 389 health care providers in a large urban medical center in the United States during August 2009. We asked participants to make a treatment recommendation based on one of four hypothetical clinical scenarios that varied in the source and type of prior investment described. By comparing recommendations across scenarios, we found that providers did not demonstrate a sunk-cost effect; rather, they demonstrated a significant tendency to over-compensate for the effect. In addition, we found that more than one in ten health care providers recommended continuation of an ineffective treatment.

Suggested Citation

  • Braverman, Jennifer A. & Blumenthal-Barby, J.S., 2012. "Assessment of the sunk-cost effect in clinical decision-making," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 186-192.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:1:p:186-192
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.03.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953612002407
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.03.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thaler, Richard, 1980. "Toward a positive theory of consumer choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 39-60, March.
    2. Fisher, Robert J, 1993. "Social Desirability Bias and the Validity of Indirect Questioning," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 20(2), pages 303-315, September.
    3. Peter A. Ubel & Christopher Jepson & Jonathan Baron, 2001. "The Inclusion of Patient Testimonials in Decision Aids," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 21(1), pages 60-68, February.
    4. Marco daCosta DiBonaventura & Gretchen B. Chapman, 2008. "Do Decision Biases Predict Bad Decisions? Omission Bias, Naturalness Bias, and Influenza Vaccination," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 28(4), pages 532-539, July.
    5. Bornstein, Brian H. & Christine Emler, A. & Chapman, Gretchen B., 1999. "Rationality in medical treatment decisions: is there a sunk-cost effect?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 215-222, July.
    6. Roy M. Poses & Michele Anthony, 1991. "Availability, Wishful Thinking, and Physicians' Diagnostic Judgments for Patients with Suspected Bacteremia," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 11(3), pages 159-168, August.
    7. Arkes, Hal R. & Blumer, Catherine, 1985. "The psychology of sunk cost," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 124-140, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Florian Englmaier & Arno Schmöller, 2008. "Reserve Price Formation in Online Auctions," CESifo Working Paper Series 2374, CESifo.
    2. Ronayne, David & Sgroi, Daniel & Tuckwell, Anthony, 2021. "Evaluating the sunk cost effect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 318-327.
    3. Gneezy, Uri & Nelidov, Vadim & Offerman, Theo & van de Ven, Jeroen, 2023. "When opportunities backfire: Alternatives reduce perseverance and success in task completion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 304-324.
    4. Duxbury, Darren, 2012. "Sunk costs and sunk benefits: A re-examination of re-investment decisions," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 144-156.
    5. Keasey, Kevin & Moon, Philip, 2000. "Sunk cost effects: a test of the importance of context," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 55-58, January.
    6. Englmaier, Florian & Schmöller, Arno, 2010. "Determinants and Effects of Reserve Prices in Hattrick Auctions," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 326, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    7. Bietenbeck, Jan & Leibing, Andreas & Marcus, Jan & Weinhardt, Felix, 2023. "Tuition fees and educational attainment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    8. Liu, Hsin-Hsien, 2013. "How promotional frames affect upgrade intentions," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 237-248.
    9. Cheng, Andong & Baskin, Ernest, 2021. "Disproportionate redemption discounting: Mental accounting of discounted credit," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 156-163.
    10. Ina Garnefeld & Andreas Eggert & Markus Husemann-Kopetzky & Eva Böhm, 2019. "Exploring the link between payment schemes and customer fraud: a mental accounting perspective," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 595-616, July.
    11. Tan, Hun-Tong & Yates, J. Frank, 2002. "Financial Budgets and Escalation Effects," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 300-322, March.
    12. Julia Blasch & Claudio Daminato, 2018. "Behavioral anomalies and energy-related individual choices: the role of status-quo bias," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 18/300, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    13. Arkes, Hal R. & Hirshleifer, David & Jiang, Danling & Lim, Sonya, 2008. "Reference point adaptation: Tests in the domain of security trading," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 67-81, January.
    14. Durham, Yvonne & Manly, Tracy S. & Ritsema, Christina, 2014. "The effects of income source, context, and income level on tax compliance decisions in a dynamic experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 220-233.
    15. Sadoff, Sally & Samek, Anya, 2019. "Can interventions affect commitment demand? A field experiment on food choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 90-109.
    16. Robalo, Pedro & Sayag, Rei, 2018. "Paying is believing: The effect of costly information on Bayesian updating," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 114-125.
    17. Xu, Xiaobing & Chen, Rong & Zhang, Jin, 2019. "Effectiveness of trade-ins and price discounts: A moderating role of substitutability," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 80-89.
    18. Borland, Jeff & Lee, Leng & Macdonald, Robert D., 2011. "Escalation effects and the player draft in the AFL," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 371-380, June.
    19. Boehne, Donna M. & Paese, Paul W., 2000. "Deciding Whether to Complete or Terminate an Unfinished Project: A Strong Test of the Project Completion Hypothesis," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 178-194, March.
    20. Sharma, Dheeraj & Pandey, Shivendra, 2020. "The role payment depreciation in short temporal separations: Should online retailer make customers wait?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:1:p:186-192. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.