Information acquisition in Adapt/Exchange decisions: When do people check alternative solution principles?

Romy Müller, Maria Pohl — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0100

Many problems can be solved in two ways: either by adapting an existing solution, or by exchanging it for a new one. To investigate under what conditions people consider new solutions, we traced their information acquisition processes in a simulated mechanical engineering task. Within a multi-step optimisation procedure, participants could either adapt the properties of a currently used machine component, or exchange this component for a new one. They had the opportunity to check whether the solutions met a set of requirements, which was varied systematically. We investigated whether participants would consistently check both solutions, or whether they would satisfice, ignoring the new solution as long as the current one was good enough. The results clearly refuted consistent checking, but only partly confirmed satisficing. On the one hand, participants indeed checked the new solution least often when the current one was applicable without problems. On the other hand, in this case the new solution still was not fully ignored. However, the latter finding could be traced back to a few participants who diverged from our anticipated strategy of first checking the current solution, and directly went for the new one. The results suggest that in Adapt/Exchange decisions, people do not usually check both solutions in an unbiased manner, but rely on existing solutions as long as they are good enough.

Honesty and fairness reduce the sunk-cost effect

Zachariah I. Hamzagic, Tobias Krettenauer — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0200

The sunk-cost effect (SCE) is the tendency to continue investing in an unsuccessful activity because of previous investments that cannot be recovered. We examine the SCE when continued investment is dishonest and unfair, and whether moral identity predicts decision-making in sunk-cost moral scenarios. Moral identity is the degree of importance of being moral to one’s sense of identity, and prior research has found moral identity predicts moral behaviour. We find that the SCE was smaller if continuing with the sunk-cost decisions were dishonest and unfair, and stronger moral identity predicted lower likelihood to continue investment if doing so was dishonest and unfair. Participants were also more likely to cite moral reasons for their decisions than sunk-cost reasons in scenarios that sunk costs were high and continuing would be dishonest and unfair. We suggest people place a greater importance on being honest and fair compared to paying off previous investments, especially for those with a stronger moral identity. These findings may help explain decision-making in situations where sunk costs are at odds with moral considerations.

Journal of Dynamic Decision Making

Information acquisition in Adapt/Exchange decisions: When do people check alternative solution principles?

Honesty and fairness reduce the sunk-cost effect