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Imagine you see a post on a social network where people are discussing a new disaster. You start to notice more and more posts on this topic, and over time, this problem becomes very relevant to you.

💡 This is an example of the Cascade of Events mental trap, a process where information spreads quickly and massively, making people perceive it as extremely important.

🔍 This phenomenon has three key aspects:

1. Response to information availability: we prefer information that is easily understood and accessible. This can lead to an overestimation of the level of threat or importance of a particular problem.

2. Focus on a single topic: the more time we spend discussing a particular issue, the more we feel that the issue is relevant. This can increase our attention to the topic and encourage us to share this information with others.

3. Social reinforcement: When our friends, relatives or colleagues are also discussing the issue, we feel social pressure and reinforcement to pay attention to the topic. This can lead us to attach even more importance to the issue.

To understand and control this phenomenon:

📍Check the sources of information before sharing it with others. Try to identify whether the source is reliable and objective.

Develop critical thinking, ask questions, and compare information from different sources to understand how important an issue really is.

Monitor your emotions when interacting with information. Our emotions can often influence the way we perceive problems and the decisions we make.

Limit the time you spend on social media to avoid a continuous flow of information that can influence your perception of the world and problems.

Engage in a dialogue with others to exchange ideas and get different perspectives. This will help you see problems in a broader context and develop a more objective understanding of the situation.

📍It is important to be aware of this phenomenon, develop critical thinking and reflection to avoid its negative consequences and maintain your ability to perceive the world adequately.


You have bought a ticket to a film in the cinema, which you have heard many good reviews about. However, half an hour into the film, you realise that you don't like it at all and you're not enjoying it.

🧠 The Sunk Cost Fallacy is that you continue to watch the film to the end, despite your dissatisfaction, just because you have already paid for the ticket. Instead of accepting the loss of money and refusing to watch the film again, you spend even more time and emotional resources trying to "get your money's worth". This is a typical manifestation of the Sunk Cost Mental Trap, where we allow past spending to influence our current decisions and behaviour.

The sunk cost trap was first studied in the 1980s when economists Richard Taylor and Daniel Kahneman discovered the phenomenon in their research on behavioural economics. They studied the way people make decisions under uncertainty and found that losses matter more to people than similar gains.

🧠 One of the most popular experiments in the study of the sunk cost trap was a study by Gala Arkes and Kathryn Bloomer published in 1985. They conducted a series of experiments that investigated how people make decisions about further investments of time, money, or effort based on resources already spent.

In one of the experiments, participants were asked to buy a ticket to a game or play. After purchasing the ticket, they learned that another interesting event would take place at the same time. Participants tended to continue to plan to attend the first event, despite their desire to see the second, because of a sense of obligation to the ticket they had already bought.

Here are some ways to avoid the sunk cost trap:

📍 Identify your current goals and needs.
Assess the situation in terms of current and future benefits, not past costs.
Learn to let go and accept losses, focusing on what can improve your life in the future.