The Sunk Cost of Personal Relationships

One of the most useful concepts I learned about in school was the idea of the sunk cost. In business, a sunk cost is a cost that has already been incurred that you can't recoup. Since there is nothing you can do about this past expenditure, it should not enter into the equation of your decision-making For instance, if I buy a movie ticket and I am not liking a movie, I should leave because "getting my money's worth" doesn't make sense if it's an unenjoyable experience and I could be doing something better.



In interpersonal relationships, sunk costs occur along the way. Somebody messes up and spills milk that can't be unspilled. I realized that at that point, I always need to weigh the utility of reprimanding them. Will it in any way undo what they did? Is this a one-time event, or something that may happen again in the future? These are actually pretty important questions because the cost of reprimanding someone is their resentment, so it's important to make sure to only reprimand people for things that they can change in the future and keep the message about that change. It's difficult to avoid taking sunk costs into consideration because it tends to be emotional, but it's for the best.