Mental Accounting and Sunk Cost Biases: A Social Experiment with a Food and Beverage Experience

Abstract

Introduction: When people need to take decisions, being economic decisions or otherwise, their decisions tend to rely on information the brain has already processed, and this includes the resources that the person has already invested. This is called sunk cost bias in the behavioural economics literature. On the other hand, mental practices could lead to the mental accounting bias, where people allocate a different value to a fixed amount of money, depending on circumstances.

Purpose: In this chapter, both biases mental accounting and sunk cost are investigated for the tourism industry in Turkey.

Methodology: The topic is researched through scenario-based questions and the Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) method is applied.

Findings: As a result, it could be reported that people, regardless of gender, fall into sunk cost and mental accounting biases in decisions relating to their vacations. Mental accounting biases can be primarily explained using the scenario questions posed rather than gender, education, and income while sunk cost bias is explained by status, ‘being s university student’ and ‘income level’.

Practical implications: Rapid price changes in the tourism industry can disturb consumers who are mental accounting and sunk cost biased. So, they can change their holiday preferences or be dissatisfied with it and give negative feedback.

Citation

Tufan, E., Aycan, M. and Hamarat, B. (2024), "Mental Accounting and Sunk Cost Biases: A Social Experiment with a Food and Beverage Experience", Kumar, N., Sood, K., Özen, E. and Grima, S. (Ed.) The Framework for Resilient Industry: A Holistic Approach for Developing Economies (Emerald Studies in Finance, Insurance, and Risk Management), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 177-198. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83753-734-120241013