Data.xlsx

The dataset comprises responses from 105 participants across three generational cohorts (Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z) who completed three scenarios designed to assess sunk cost decision-making in monetary and temporal domains. In <b>Scenario 1</b>, participants made a binary choice between continuing with or abandoning a sunk investment framed around entertainment options (rock concert vs. theatre), with variables including year of birth, gender, generation group, type of sunk cost (time vs. money), and the choice made. <b>Scenario 2</b> involved decisions between investing in a solar-powered pump or a rocket engine under different conditions (control vs. sunk; time vs. money), with recorded variables including age, year of birth, gender, generation group, sunk cost type, condition, and decision choice. <b>Scenario 3</b> presented a mining task in which sunk cost and completion cost were experimentally varied, with participants choosing whether to continue digging or switch to a new mine. Variables in this task included year of birth, gender, generation group, type of sunk cost, condition (e.g., low sunk–high completion), sunk cost level, completion cost level, and decision choice. Each row in the dataset corresponds to an individual participant’s response, with categorical variables coded as text and continuous variables (such as age and year of birth) recorded numerically. Together, the dataset enables analysis of generational differences in susceptibility to sunk cost fallacy, comparison of monetary versus temporal sunk costs, and evaluation of condition-based effects, offering empirical grounding for testing the mortality–fertility–parenting model in the domain of decision-making.