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The sunk cost effect is a maladaptive economic behavior that is manifested in a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made. The Concorde fallacy is another name for the sunk cost effect, except that the former term has been applied strictly to lower animals, whereas the latter has been applied solely to humans. The authors contend that there are no unambiguous instances of the Concorde fallacy in lower animals and also present evidence that young children, when placed in an economic situation akin to a sunk cost one, exhibit more normatively correct behavior than do adults. These findings pose an enigma: Why do adult humans commit an error contrary to the normative cost-benefit rules of choice, whereas children and phylogenetically humble organisms do not? The authors attempt to show that this paradoxical state of affairs is due to humans' overgeneralization of the "Don't waste" rule.

Legal decisions such as the decision to bail upon adjourning a case have major consequences for both defendants and society. In the English system, magistrates, most of whom are lay people, are afforded considerable discretion and must work under constraints such as time pressure. Judgment analysis of the bail decision making policies of 81 magistrates from 44 courts throughout England and Wales revealed intra-and intermagistrate inconsistency in bail decisions, discrepancies between stated and elicited cue use, and high levels of post-decisional con®dence. Furthermore, magistrates' policies were better described and predicted by a fast and frugal model characterized by noncompensatory cue use, than by either of two compensatory integration models. The fast and frugal model portrays a picture of bail decision making that con¯icts with the ideal practice as de®ned by the due process model of justice. We discuss the implications of these ®ndings for judgment and decision making research and criminal justice policy. key words judgment analysis; fast and frugal; legal decision making; bail Decisions made in the criminal justice system are regularly criticized by organizations supporting victims, groups representing defendants and professional agencies such as the prosecution service. Criticism is directed both at existing legal rules and procedures and the individuals who are formally trained to apply them. The motivation for such scrutiny lies in the belief that crime and order are socially constructed and so can be reconstructed, and the realization that legal decisions have consequences for both the public purse and the lives of the public.Past psychological research on legal decision making includes studies investigating particular decisions made by judges (e.g. Ebbesen and Konecni, 1975;Sensibaugh and Allgeier, 1996) and studies of jury decision making (e.g. Klevorick et al., 1984;Pennington and Hastie, 1981). Although both types of research provide scope for challenging and changing existing legal rules and procedures, only the former can also critique the performance of individuals who are formally trained and entrusted to apply them on a regular basis.Many published studies of legal decisions made by judges have tended to focus on decisions made in the American criminal justice system. For example, Ebbesen and Konecni (1975) examined the information

This is the unspecified version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Abdellaoui, 2000;Gonzalez & Wu, 1999;Prelec, 1998;Tversky & Wakker, 1995;Wakker, 2003). Permanent repository linkThe nonlinear impact of probability on decisions is exemplified by the fourfold pattern of risk preferences predicted by Cumulative prospect theory (Tversky & Kahneman, 1992). Thus, because people overweight small probabilities, both low probability gains and low probability losses loom large relative to certain payoffs with the same expected value. This results in risk seeking for gains and risk aversion for losses at low probability -for example, people are tempted to buy lottery tickets (seeking unlikely gains) and insurance (attempting to avoid unlikely losses). Also, as people underweight moderate and large probabilities, they show a contrasting risk aversion for high probability gains and risk seeking for high probability losses compared to certain payoffs with the same expected value. Risky Decision-Making and PrecautionsTversky & Kahneman's (1992) studies reporting under-and over-weighting of probability measured respondents' binary choices between monetary gambles.However, there is some reason to believe that people's choices about monetary gambles may not correspond with their preponderance for risk in situations where they need to consider decisions regarding other kinds of risks. Several studies have reported increased attractiveness of decision prospects when framed as insurance decisions; specifically, there is evidence for a context effect in which prospects presented in an insurance context are judged with greater risk aversion than mathematically identical choices presented as standard gambles (Connor, 1996; EXAGGERATED RISK 5 Hershey & Schoemaker, 1980;Schoemaker & Kunreuther, 1979;Slovic, Fischhoff, Lichtenstein, Corrigan & Combs, 1977). This finding has prompted the suggestion that people have a relatively favorable attitude towards insurance because, unlike gambling, insurance is viewed as an investment as well as a means of risk reduction (Slovic, Fischhoff & Lichtenstein, 1987).Given the suggestion that there may be differences in people's decision behavior as a function of the type of risks they may be contemplating, we propose that there is a need to be sensitive to possibly different psychological types of risky decision.Accordingly, we identify and define precautionary decisions and behavior as those occasions where people aim to minimize or avoid risks by taking protective actions and where the benefits of taking precautions exemplify risk-averse behavior (Baron et al., 2000;Hershey & Schoemaker, 1980). Protective behavior and decisions in the face of risk have been the subject of a number of studies (e.g., Baron, Hershey & Kunreuther, 2000;Huber & Huber, 2008;Johnson, Hershey, Meszaros & Kunreuther, 1993;Kunreuther, 2001;Slovic et al., 1987;Wakker, Thaler & Tversky, 1997) and yet, to our knowledge, no study has attempted to asses the probability-...

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