Emotion and the Tripartite Emotion-functioning Capacities in Debiasing Sunk-cost Fallacy: A Trait-level Review

The study was aimed at examining the interplay of emotion and three emotion-functioning capacities in debiasing sunk-cost fallacy at trait-level. An online survey was used to study 378 US adults and found that dispositional positive and negative affectivity, trait-mindfulness, trait-EI and reappraisal were associated with debiasing sunk-cost fallacy. Among these factors, trait-mindfulness was found to be the most prominent attribute in association with debiasing sunk-cost fallacy. A deeper review of the participants’ characteristics revealed that prolonged practice of mindfulness meditation fostered trait-mindfulness, trait-EI and reappraisal in conjunction with upregulating dispositional positive affect and downregulating dispositional negative affect. This study suggests that training which pays attention to the emotional underpinnings of decision biases and in particular mindfulness techniques may have greater promise. The study also offers interesting insight for future research directions through which the tripartite emotion-functioning capacities can be better investigated.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

mres

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

The Open University

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Wong, Ernest Kwok Sun

Language dc:language

en