2016 — Sunk costs, psychological symptomology, and help seeking

What the study found

This 2016 study in SpringerPlus examined the sunk cost effect, defined after Arkes and Blumer (1985) as a maladaptive economic behavior: a greater tendency to keep going on an endeavor once money, effort or time has already been invested. The researchers found that people who committed this fallacy persisted longer in unpleasant situations, and notably that they waited significantly longer before seeking help. ^[1]

Why it matters here

In manosphere discussions, men's reluctance to reach out for support is often treated as either an innate trait or a product of social stigma alone. This study offers a different, more general mechanism: a cognitive bias in which prior investment discourages people of any gender from cutting their losses, including the loss of time before asking for help. It is cited on is male suicide ignored? as one factor that can help explain delayed help-seeking, rather than as evidence about men specifically, since the study is not framed around sex differences.