Sunk Cost Fallacy

The Sunk Cost fallacy describes a situation in which someone already invested money or effort in something, and is unwilling to give up until they gain what they have lost back. It is a common fallacy because we often ignore the fact that what we have spent will not come back and insist on paying more money or effort to try to bring back what we have lost. One very common example happens a lot in casinos.

People would sometimes keep gambling despite already losing a lot of money, thinking that they could somehow earn the money they lost back. Another example can be observed in universities. Many university students would attend classes that they might have already lost interest in, just because they had already attended a few classes and didn't want to give up the effort they paid. The last example is one that I observed from myself. A while ago I bought a set of comics, I enjoyed the beginning of it but it started getting boring gradually. However, I continued following the series because I thought I'd already spent the time reading I might as well hope that the story would get more interesting in the future. It might not make sense to continue buying this series of comics because it has already gotten boring, and I will need to spend more time reading them if I buy them. With that being said, it is still hard for me to stop getting the new volumes of this comic because of the sunk cost fallacy.