The longer an individual waits for a reward, the less willing they will be to give up pursuit of the reward, a new study in mice, rats and humans reports. The findings suggest that many animals make decisions wrongly, based on irrecoverable investments, known as "sunk costs," rather than on expected future outcomes, given the potential gain.
To explore animals' perceptions of sunk costs, researchers. set up an experiment with mice that were trained to enter different rooms to forage for different treats. The flavors of the treats - and the waiting period before each treat was awarded - varied.
How long would a mouse wait for a given, flavored treat before moving on to the next room? The researchers found that even if the treat was a less preferred one, the mice would wait longer to receive their reward if they had already invested some time to wait for it - highlighting a sunk cost bias.
Similar results were found in rats foraging for food, as well as in experiments with humans browsing the web (foraging not for food, but for entertainment); the human participants were rewarded if they stayed on a webpage for a sufficiently long time. Across all three species, this sunk cost bias grew stronger the longer the subjects waited.
The researchers discuss three possible explanations for the bias. They say that because predicting the value of future outcomes can be complex and difficult, animals may have evolved processes in which valuation is measured from effort spent, which is easier to process. Other explanations implicate the physiological and psychological state of an animal after it has invested a lot of energy into one resource.
In a related Perspective, the author notied that "Understanding [the sunk cost bias phenomenon] can help us to better understand why we make the decisions that we do and, ultimately, suggest ways of improving our decision-making."
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/178
Latest News
Metabolic rewiring promotes…
By newseditor
Posted 18 Apr
A drug to prevent flu-induc…
By newseditor
Posted 18 Apr
New origin of deep brain waves
By newseditor
Posted 17 Apr
Starving cells hijack prote…
By newseditor
Posted 17 Apr
Miniature battery-free epid…
By newseditor
Posted 17 Apr
Other Top Stories
Complement C3a treatment accelerates recovery after stroke
Read more
How chronic stress drives the brain to crave comfort food
Read more
How blood triggers brain disease
Read more
The IL-17 protein plays a key role in skin ageing
Read more
Myelin water fraction (MWF) of the corpus callosum is a robust meas…
Read more
Protocols
MemPrep, a new technology f…
By newseditor
Posted 08 Apr
A tangible method to assess…
By newseditor
Posted 08 Apr
Stem cell-derived vessels-o…
By newseditor
Posted 06 Apr
Single-cell biclustering fo…
By newseditor
Posted 01 Apr
Modular dual-color BiAD sen…
By newseditor
Posted 31 Mar
Publications
How does the microbiota con…
By newseditor
Posted 18 Apr
The integrated stress respo…
By newseditor
Posted 18 Apr
The immunobiology of herpes…
By newseditor
Posted 17 Apr
Circulating microbiome DNA…
By newseditor
Posted 17 Apr
Spindle oscillations in com…
By newseditor
Posted 17 Apr
Presentations
Hydrogels in Drug Delivery
By newseditor
Posted 12 Apr
Lipids
By newseditor
Posted 31 Dec
Cell biology of carbohydrat…
By newseditor
Posted 29 Nov
RNA interference (RNAi)
By newseditor
Posted 23 Oct
RNA structure and functions
By newseditor
Posted 19 Oct
Posters
A chemical biology/modular…
By newseditor
Posted 22 Aug
Single-molecule covalent ma…
By newseditor
Posted 04 Jul
ASCO-2020-HEALTH SERVICES R…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar
ASCO-2020-HEAD AND NECK CANCER
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar
ASCO-2020-GENITOURINARY CAN…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar