Term For Sacrifice Anchoring You To A Strategy?

[John White]

I once heard an extremely descriptive term or phrase which described the mental state of having loss or sacrifice mentally locking one into a specific strategy or course of action in order to validate the sacrifice. Anyone know what that term is?

Examples:
"I ignored my girlfriend's ultimatum and dropped out of school to go pro, so now I -have- to make it work."

"My son lost two fingers on his left hand in a meat slicer accident. How can I tell him now that I made a mistake opening a butcher shop?"

There's an element of "not throwing good money after the bad," in these situations, but I don't think that was the phrase. Again, it was the state of wanting to validate whatever sacrifices one has made by bearing down in the current strategy or course of action.

Much appreciated.

[BigBuffet]

Stubborness [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Addiction [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[bones]

Listen to any George Bush speech made since 2002. I'd imagine it's in there somewhere.

[Ganjasaurus Rex]

The term is called "sunk cost fallacy".

[carddown]

"sunk cost fallacy" that's it! Here's an nice article on it
Skeptic's Dictionary

Lost many chips defending my blinds this way!