The fear of losing: Why Losing Hurts More Than Winning Feels Good

Why can the thought of losing something feel more powerful than the possibility of gaining something just as valuable?

In this episode of Circuit Breaker: Rewiring Your Decisions, we explore Loss Aversion — the psychological tendency for losses to feel more significant than equivalent gains. We look at how the fear of losing what we already have can influence our choices, shape our priorities, and make change feel especially difficult.

But how often do we make decisions to avoid a loss rather than pursue a gain? Discover how Loss Aversion can affect our judgment, keep us attached to familiar choices, and reveal why the possibility of losing something can carry such powerful weight.

Studies and links

• Why do we buy insurance? | The Decision Lab Loss Aversion - The Decision Lab
• Why do we value items more if they belong to us? | The Decision Lab Endowment Effect - The Decision Lab
• Why are we likely to continue with an investment even if it would be rational to give it up? | The Decision Lab The Sunk Cost Fallacy - The Decision Lab
• Loss aversion in riskless choice: a reference-dependent model | Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman | Oxford University Press | UFL Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model