Porque honramos os custos afundados? Uma revisão de literatura

Abstract

This dissertation aims to: (i) clearly describe the behaviour dynamics that results in the Sunk Cost Effect (SCE), (ii) describe and systematize the various reasons suggested for the occurrence of such behaviour. The SCE is often classified as a choice anomaly; i.e. a decision that seems to contradict what would be the optimal decision, as defined by Rational Choice Theory. Therefore, this paper outlines the issue of rationality and examines the status (rational/irrational) of the SCE taking into account the results found in the literature. The text also discusses the role that emotions have in the processes of economic decision-making and reports an experimental study focused on the influence of incidental emotions on those decisions. From the methodological point of view, the literature review was the starting point for building a specific conceptual framework, as well as the categorization of the variables that lead to the SCE. Finally, it is presented an experiment conducted to examine the impact of the emotion of disgust in the Honor of Sunk Costs (HSC). For the experimental study participants responded to a set of sunk cost scenarios under one of two possible conditions: emotional induction of “disgust” (experimental group); or exposure to a neutral, non-emotional situation (control group). As a result it was found that experiencing the disgust seems to promote the HSC in non-monetary situations. However, more research would be necessary to examine these effects in greater detail. This project tried to contribute to the theoretical debate on sunk costs in a relevant way, by building a conceptual framework that cannot be found in the literature, and which clarifies specifically each phenomenon resulting from a situation of sunk cost. In addition, the categorizations of the variables that lead to the ACE allow seeing in a succinct and complete way the reasons for this behavior. Regarding the experiment, in the literature there is not a specific study about the influence of emotions on the ACE

Date of Award	2011
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Carlos Eduardo Evangelista Mauro (Supervisor) & Fernando Ferreira-Santos (Supervisor)