Have you ever heard someone say something like “We’ve put so much work into this project already. We can’t stop now!”? When we try to achieve an objective and we devote a significant amount of time and energy to achieving it, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we must finish the job regardless of the cost. After all, when you put so much effort into a task, it would be foolish to quit right?
This is known as the sunk cost fallacy. If you make a decision to continue pursuing something because of the costs you have already incurred, and not the costs that you still have to face, you are falling prey to the sunk cost fallacy. The costs you paid in the past cannot be recovered. They are sunk. Before you continue trying to complete a project you need to compare the future costs to the benefits of your action. If the costs of continuing are greater than the potential benefits, you should do something else.
In this clip from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, we meet Miguel O’Hara, a troubled Spider-Man from Earth-928. He is trying to hold the Spider-Verse together and it’s taking a toll on him. He believes he can’t change his course now because he’s sacrificed so much. But wait! It sounds like this superhero needs some help from an economic superhero. Miguel has fallen prey to the sunk cost fallacy!
