The article is from WeChat public account: Seeing Ideal (ID: ikanlixiang) , author: Xu Yingjin, title figure from:” escape is shameful but helpful “

Maybe you have the same feeling. Now you are seeing a sentence like this from the circle of friends and Weibo more and more frequently: “I have given up on XXX”-I have given up the work in the system, I have given up on entering Married, abandoned to stay in the first-tier cities, abandoned the pursuit of this era …

It is true that the pressure is so great and the difficulties are so many. Now we are more and more brave to admit that we have given up a certain persistent hobby, a certain high-cost life, and even a certain life that others deserve.

But why is it a shame to give up? Only persistence is positive energy? When life does not see hope, it may not be able to usher in the dawn of the continuation. Should I stop the loss in time and turn around?

Finally, the entanglement between persistence and abandonment is still because we are still afraid to determine whether we are giving up on Kangzhuang Avenue or a dead end. We do not know whether we will throw away successful capital or sunk costs.

The content is compiled from the “Useable Philosophy” program

1. Having paid so much, should I give up?

What is sunk cost? There is one thing, it is clearly unprofitable, but you have spent a lot of time, money, and a lot of feelings on this matter. Although you know intellectually that it is not interesting to continue it, But you still grit your teeth to do it, and you end up wasting more time.

You should have used this time to do something more interesting and easier to succeed,This costs your opportunity cost.

At this point, everyone may say that this situation often appears in love: Obviously knowing that the other party is a scumbag, he just doesn’t want to break up with him.

What is the reason? He and I have been dating for so many years. Both parents have seen it. Although he has these shortcomings, he can bear it. Otherwise, my previous investment in time and feelings is wasted. If I find another boyfriend again, time is not enough.

But the problem is, you also waste the opportunity to be with better boys, which is called wasting opportunity cost.

For another example, if you saw someone in your circle of friends saying, “A certain movie must be watched, I haven’t watched you this year.” So ugly? Isn’t it as good as it is said in the circle of friends? But think about it, since the money has also been spent and the movie has been watched in half, it is better to bear it. If I leave now, the previous investment will be wasted.

But the problem is, if you are here, you forget that there is another possibility-you just go out and go to another movie, maybe the half of the afternoon you waste today Time can make up for it, otherwise you will waste all afternoon.

Another example is clearly knowing that this project is unlikely to make money, but since the company has been doing it for so long, let’s stick to it.

But the problem is that after you close the project, you can save money and manpower and do more profitable projects. This is also the case for scientific research. For some research directions, it has been unable to produce results. You should choose another topic, otherwise you may hang on a tree.

Unfortunately, our literary works are always strengthening the psychological tendency of sunk costs. Many people’s social ethics are learned from literary and artistic works, but mainstream literary and artistic works encourage everyone to persevere and don’t give up. They have come to this step. Grit their teeth.

Except for the Japanese drama “Escape is Shameful but Useful”, most literary works do not say so. Therefore, the model effect of literary and artistic works has caused many people to be wrongly motivated when facing difficult situations, which has led to more time and wealth loss.

It is true that some people persisted in the hopeless project in the face of adversity, and it finally succeeded, but its proportion was extremely low. Literary works magnify the success of these people, making many people unlucky.

2. No one wants to be the first to give up

There is a sentence called “Three Stinky Skinners, Arrive at Zhuge Liang”. One person thinking about the problem may fall into the thinking effect of such sunk costs. If everyone thinks about the problem together, can he get out of this pit? I’m afraid it’s not that simple, this will involve another thinking trap called commitment to upgrade.

What is a promised upgrade? That is, when the group is facing the bleak prospect of a project, not only will it not stop, but also because of the huge upfront investment, they will repeatedly find reasons to find excuses for their upfront investment, and refuse to withdraw the project.

The difference between the sunk cost effect and the sunk cost effect mentioned above is that the sunk cost effect is that one person faces this event and promises to upgrade each other by putting pressure on each other and forcing the other party to carry on the project. The result is instead Makes the retreat even more difficult.

Why does it exacerbate this phenomenon in groups? Because everyone is very afraid of saying the word “withdrawal” first, so they will be attacked as cowards by others. In order to maintain their position in the group, everyone can only bear it.

This example also exists in Chinese history. When the Ming Dynasty was about to perish, the Chongzhen Emperor actually realized that the North could not keep it. It would not be possible to put new troops into the northern battlefield and fight against Li Zicheng.

Emperor Chongzhen did n’t learn the sunk cost effect, but he realized in his mind that it had to stop and change, so he began to secretly plan to escape to Nanjing, the capital, to abandon the entire north, and rely on the Yangtze River to maintain it. Half of the country. The current historical evidence proves that he has already done a similar planning operation.

But the problem is that the emperor has to hold a pre-congress meeting with the minister. If the emperor first speaks and runs away, it is very detrimental to Shengwei, so he can only wait for someone in the minister to mention the escape.

For example, if two projects fail, the first one may cost you half a million yuan, but once it succeeds, it will bring you 700,000 yuan; the other project has a success of only 3,000 yuan. If it fails, it will only lose 3,000 yuan.

In this case, many people will do the second project instead of the first one, because the second project has a relatively small loss, only 3,000 yuan, and the first project has a very large loss. It is 500,000 yuan. However, you overlooked the first project and it made a lot of money.

Why does the aversive loss effect also provide some support for sunk costs? The reason is this, Paying attention to the sunk cost itself is to attach great importance to the past history, or in other words, it reflects a certain human fear of the future.

For those who are obsessed with this effect, the possible loss in the future is more terrible than the existing loss in the past, so everyone will fall into the line of thought: this business has been losing money, but I have persisted for so long At least, I’m also familiar with it. If I don’t make it, I will make money. If I change my business immediately, who can guarantee that I can make money in the future? Might as well continue to be an expert.

In fact, from a deeper perspective, both of these effects should be viewed from the perspective of evolution. It is the evolutionary process that gives us such psychological endowments.

In the era of collecting and hunting, people have very little resources. He must eat prey sparingly, so the idea of ​​”two birds in the forest is worse than one bird in hand”, let us cherish the possessions at hand. This enables early humans to make the most of available resources without risking chasing more distant goals.

The same is true of aversion to loss. Can future acquisitions be obtained? Since being so uncertain, abandoning what is present to pursue the future will bring greater uncertainty.

But in modern society, this is an era of drastic changes in social order.Will actually lead to two possible consequences:

The first consequence is that you are unfamiliar with new projects in the future. After giving up the original projects and investing in new projects, it will be even worse, because you have entered an unfamiliar field, and at this time you feel that you are following the tradition. It would be better.

Another possibility is that because the times have changed, the line you were familiar with is now outdated, and you are precisely eliminated by the times just because you stick to tradition.

So there are two possibilities. One is that it is better to follow the tradition, and the other is that it is eliminated because of the tradition. This situation is actually uncertain.

I have no way to tell a priori what will happen, and this uncertainty brings a sense of fate.

Either philosophical thinking or psychological research, there is no way to eliminate the destiny factor. The reason why rational thinking cannot overcome religion lies here. It is precisely the uncertainty of destiny that has given rise to the need for religion.

4. To overcome the sunk cost bias, you need to attack with poison

The question comes: So can sunk cost biases be overcome?

Here is a very interesting case of Temi Stockley. Temi Stockley was a very famous politician in Athens. At that time, a silver mine was discovered in Lyon in Athens. Many people advocated that the silver be divided. Invest in the navy, establish hegemony, attack other city-states, and then divide the money and the future money.

Obviously, this idea of ​​Temi Stockley is purely investment in the early stage, it is difficult to bring profit, but if you divide the money now, it can bring huge profits.

How did Temi Stockley persuade everyone to give up his psychological prejudice and follow him? He took several approaches:

First, resort to deities. Through the tone of God, Temi Stockley convinced everyone that fate would be on the side of the Athenians, eliminating everyone’s uncertainty about the future.

Second, manufacturing demand. He made the Athenians hate a feud, another island nation called Aegina, and the island nation needed the navy.

Third, conduct a feasibility study. Temi Stockley said that the Athenians had fought with Aegina, and we had barely won the enemy by renting warships. This illustrates two points. First, we have beaten the Aeginas. Second, we have to fight against our enemies by leasing our allies ’warships. If we have more warships of our own, would we be able to increase Has the probability of defeating them? Listening is also very reasonable, this is called feasibility demonstration.

He used several methods to make people no longer value these gains at hand, and he was willing to contribute money to the country, so that the country organized the navy, finally won the war, and then distributed the loot.

In short, The method to overcome a psychological trap is to use some other psychological skills to form a certain balance. Comprehensive use is the only way to demonstrate victory.

The article is from WeChat public account: Seeing Ideal (ID: ikanlixiang) , author: Xu Yingjin