title: An fMRI study on sunk cost effect.
abstract: Sunk cost effect (also called escalation of commitment, etc) is a pervasive, interesting and famous decision bias, which has been intensively discussed in psychology, economics, management, political science, zoology, etc. To date, little has been known about the neural basis of this phenomenon. We investigated it by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor healthy subjects' brain activities when they made decisions in a task wherein sunk cost and incremental cost were systematically manipulated. Higher sunk cost only increased activity of some brain areas (mainly lateral frontal and parietal cortices, which are involved in risk-taking), whereas lower incremental cost mainly increased activity of some brain areas (including striatum and medial prefrontal cortex, which are sensitive to rewards). No overlapping brain areas were found to respond to both sunk cost and incremental cost. These results favor certainty effect over self-justification or diminishing sensitivity as account of sunk cost effect.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, No 1 Tiansheng Road, Beibei District, Chongqing City 400715, China.
authors.forename: Jianmin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: Qinglin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Changming
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Rongjun
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Qiyong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Gong
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D011932:Reading; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen