“The
Psychology of Lost Causes”
By:
Heidi Grant Halvorson
Published:
The New York Times; May 14, 2013;
Level
of Difficulty: *
Note
to the Student: A sample of the writing activity is available in the file
marked “Sample Essays”
BEFORE
YOU READ
·
How do you react when you know
a relationship is not going to work out?
·
You have tried very hard to do
a job but you know it is not going to work out. Do you stop trying or do you
keep on trying?
·
If you keep on trying, why do
you do it?
·
Is it a good idea to keep on
trying?
QUESTIONS
1. Read the stories of Bruno Iksil and John Edwards. What conclusion
can we draw from them?
2. What is the most important reason why people don’t see the
‘sunk cost fallacy’ in themselves?
3. Read the examples of the job, the living room and the boy friend.
What quality do they share? ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
4. Daniel Kahnemen and Dan Ariely say our focus is wrong. Why is
exactly is it wrong? Because we don’t
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
5. Which type of focus is most common? Is this type of focus a mistake
or not?
6. Read Molden and Hui’s experiment carefully to the end. What
conclusion can we draw?
WRITING
TASK
Write a one paragraph summary of the text.
Your summary needs to be short and concise but cover all the main facts. When
you have finished, check out the example on the blog.
HOW
TO WALK AWAY KEY AND TEACHER’S NOTES
This
is one of the easiest activities on the blog which, nevertheless, has a wow
factor. I was, therefore, thrilled when I stumbled across it. It lends itself
to some good questions and better still, a summary exercise. The latter I love
as both a reading and writing activity.
1. The cost to a person who doesn’t know when to quit can be enormous
2. This innate, overwhelming aversion to sunk costs
3. Sunk costs (and you can’t get the investments you put into them back
out). Either of these would do separately too as they mean the same thing.
4. Focus on the costs of not moving on:
more wasted time and more effort, more unhappiness and more missed
opportunities.
5. Prevention focus and yes it is a mistake
6. When we see our goals in terms of what we can gain, rather than what
we might lose, we are more likely to see a doomed endevour for what it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment