Silent Watcher made reference to a theory called "sunk cost fallacy." I had not heard of this term, but when I googled, I did get a reference to the very familiar Concorde Theory. If you are not familiar with either, here is a primer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost
How many JW's do you know that can't bear to leave the "TRUTH" because of the amount of time, money or effort involved? They have invested so many years of their life, and can not be recovered at any cost. How many have too much false pride to admit they have been wrong for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or more years???
This is referred to as the "Sunk Cost"
Economists argue that, if you are rational, you will not take sunk costs into account when making decisions. In the case of the movie ticket, there are two possible end results. You will either have:
- Paid the price of the ticket and suffered watching a movie that you do not want to see, or;
- Paid the price of the ticket and used the time to do something more fun.
In either case, you have "paid the price of the ticket" so that part of the decision should cancel itself out. If you regret buying the ticket because you do not think the movie is worth the money then your current decision should be based on whether you want to see the movie at all, regardless of what you have paid for it - just like deciding whether you want to go to a free movie. The economist will suggest that since the latter option only involves you suffering in one way (spent money), while the former involves you suffering in two (spent money plus wasted time), the latter is obviously preferable.
Also note this point:
Many people, for example, would feel obliged to go to the movie despite not really wanting to, because doing otherwise would be wasting the ticket price; they feel they passed the point of no return. This is sometimes called the sunk cost fallacy. Economists would label this behavior "irrational": It is inefficient because it misallocates resources by depending on information that is irrelevant to the decision being made.
How many JW don't really want to do the JW-two step anymore, but can't stop dancing because they have passed the point of no return in their emotional investment?!?!
If you buy a ticket in advance to a movie you find is bad, you have still made a semi-public commitment to watching it. You may feel that you "save face" by sticking it out, a satisfaction you cannot draw if you leave. To leave early is to make your lapse of judgment manifest to strangers, an appearance you may rationally choose to avoid. You may in fact find some amusement in how bad the movie turned out to be, and take pride that you recognise it to be bad.
Lisa
Always learning from those evil apostates! Class