Cognitive BiasesPublic knowledge library

Practice Lab

Continue, change, or stop a project

Learn to connect a practical check with the evidence-reviewed lens behind it. A real situation can involve several patterns, so each exercise asks for the best first lens among the listed options, not a diagnosis.

How to use this set

Read the check. Choose a lens. Then inspect the evidence.

Use these evidence-reviewed lenses when a project has disappointing results and the next decision is whether to invest more, change direction, or stop.

Read the full decision guide before or after the set.

Exercise 1 of 7

In continue, change, or stop a project, which lens does this check belong to: “Which past costs are irrecoverable, and would they change what we choose if we evaluated only the future options?”

  1. Sunk Cost Effect
  2. Loss Aversion
  3. Escalation of Commitment
Show the best first lens

Sunk Cost Effect

Which past costs are irrecoverable, and would they change what we choose if we evaluated only the future options?

Evidence note The sunk cost effect is a documented tendency for irrecoverable prior investments of money, time, or effort to influence later choices. A meta-analytic review found clear evidence for the effect overall, while also showing that its size and moderators differ between utilization decisions and progress decisions. The effect should not be used to label every choice to continue: future value, switching costs, uncertainty, and how close a project is to useful completion can all be relevant to a forward-looking decision.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 2 of 7

In continue, change, or stop a project, which lens does this check belong to: “Is stopping being evaluated as a prospective loss from the current reference point, separately from the sunk costs already paid?”

  1. Escalation of Commitment
  2. Anchoring Effect
  3. Loss Aversion
Show the best first lens

Loss Aversion

Is stopping being evaluated as a prospective loss from the current reference point, separately from the sunk costs already paid?

Evidence note Loss aversion is a central component of prospect theory and many studies estimate losses as receiving greater subjective weight than gains around a reference point. However, the effect should not be summarized with one universal coefficient. A 2024 interdisciplinary meta-analysis of 607 estimates reported a mean coefficient near 1.96, while another 2024 meta-analysis of individual risky-choice datasets estimated about 1.31. A 2025 re-analysis of the larger dataset found little evidence of loss aversion in some symmetric, unordered designs, showing that task structure and analysis can materially change the result.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 3 of 7

In continue, change, or stop a project, which lens does this check belong to: “Are setbacks leading us to commit more resources without reopening whether this course still deserves the next investment?”

  1. Planning Fallacy
  2. Escalation of Commitment
  3. Anchoring Effect
Show the best first lens

Escalation of Commitment

Are setbacks leading us to commit more resources without reopening whether this course still deserves the next investment?

Evidence note Sunk-cost effects and escalation of commitment overlap but are not interchangeable. Sunk-cost research asks whether irrecoverable prior investments influence current choices. Escalation of commitment describes persistence or additional resource allocation to a failing course of action and can also be driven by personal responsibility, self-justification, project structure, and other factors.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 4 of 7

In continue, change, or stop a project, which lens does this check belong to: “Which original target, budget, valuation, or deadline is still pulling the current judgment toward it?”

  1. Anchoring Effect
  2. Planning Fallacy
  3. Confirmation Bias
Show the best first lens

Anchoring Effect

Which original target, budget, valuation, or deadline is still pulling the current judgment toward it?

Evidence note Anchoring is a well-supported effect in which an initial numerical value can pull a later estimate toward it. A 2026 meta-analysis covering 2,601 effect sizes found a large overall effect, but also substantial variation across studies. The effect should not be treated as a rule that every number changes every judgment: incidental anchors, anchors from a different dimension, clearly random values, incentives, and some debiasing conditions were associated with smaller or null effects.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 5 of 7

In continue, change, or stop a project, which lens does this check belong to: “What does comparable completed work say about the cost and time still required from today?”

  1. Confirmation Bias
  2. Outcome Bias
  3. Planning Fallacy
Show the best first lens

Planning Fallacy

What does comparable completed work say about the cost and time still required from today?

Evidence note The planning fallacy is a well-documented tendency for people to predict their own task completion times too optimistically. The effect has been observed across different kinds of tasks, but it is not a rule that every plan will run late. Project overruns can also come from changing scope, dependencies, incentives, poor data, deliberate underestimation, or genuinely unusual events, so a late project should not automatically be diagnosed as a planning fallacy.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 6 of 7

In continue, change, or stop a project, which lens does this check belong to: “What evidence would make us stop or materially change the project, and have we actively looked for it?”

  1. Sunk Cost Effect
  2. Confirmation Bias
  3. Outcome Bias
Show the best first lens

Confirmation Bias

What evidence would make us stop or materially change the project, and have we actively looked for it?

Evidence note Confirmation bias is an umbrella label for several ways existing beliefs or hypotheses can influence information search and interpretation. It should not be reduced to one behaviour such as reading only agreeable news, and a preference for confirming tests is not irrational in every task or environment.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 7 of 7

In continue, change, or stop a project, which lens does this check belong to: “Would we rate the quality of today’s continue-or-stop process the same way if the eventual outcome went the other direction?”

  1. Outcome Bias
  2. Sunk Cost Effect
  3. Loss Aversion
Show the best first lens

Outcome Bias

Would we rate the quality of today’s continue-or-stop process the same way if the eventual outcome went the other direction?

Evidence note Outcome bias occurs when knowledge of a result changes how people evaluate the quality of a decision even when the information available at the time of the decision is held constant. Outcomes can still be relevant for learning, so the error is not 'never look at results'; it is using luck or hindsight as if it had been available to the original decision-maker.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide