The mindful croissant

The psychology of sunk costs and convenience

It takes 2 whole days, including elapsed dough resting time to make croissants, add an extra day if like me you need to hunt in the back of a cupboard looking for yeast packets only to find they went out of date last month. Making fresh croissants is a planned event, and one that has become a seasonal tradition for Christmas in our household.

Thankfully, you can freeze the rolled-up dough on the second day, removing it on Christmas eve to rest in the fridge where it magically rises, add a small splash of beaten egg on top bung in the oven, then eat. It is a huge faff, but this year I reflected on the psychological benefits that come from taking the time to do things the long and slow way.

Photo by Mae Mu on Unsplash

There’s a bias called the sunk cost effect that is used by economists and psychologists to describe the fact that we continue to do things even when they are bad for us based on the time, money or resource we’ve sunk into it previously, perhaps this is what happens with our convenience decisions too, we might tell ourselves that it saves time or money but neglect the less tangible benefits of enjoyment and pleasure.

I’ve always enjoyed baking, however the last few years of academic study and running a business meant I’ve spent less time doing things that can be replaced by convenience, and now that I have a little more time, I’m starting to realise how I’ve sunk my decision making behaviour into convenience thinking, for example I’d tell myself that it’s cheaper and quicker to buy shop bought croissants, actually the ingredient cost is about the same but the trade-off for the convenience is quality, and in my experience not worth it at all.

The real faff with croissants is what makes them so good!, once you’ve bashed a block of butter flat with a rolling pin, (my favourite bit) you roll out, fold, turn, rest and repeat a number of times to build up layer after layer of dough and butter, the laminated dough creates the perfect flaky pastry. It is also a perfect example of being in psychological flow, the task is simple if you follow it step by step, but it requires a healthy dose of concentration which makes it just tricky enough to be challenging. The term flow was coined by the Hungarian-American psychologist Csikszentmihalyi (CHIK-sent-mee-hy-ee), who described it as an optimal experience because it pairs challenge with a tangible result, not all psychologists agree with this optimal experience view though, the fact that we chase optimum flow for the activities we love and enjoy is part of our belief that flow is good state to be in.

Of course, it’s more nuanced than that. We chase flow because once we’ve experienced it our reward system seeks it out again, and again (I have a download on Flow and reward here) . Flow is appealing because it allows us to transcend or disassociate from what is happening around us, it makes sense that it has a dark side, and encourages risky behaviour, one theory is that the lack of self consciousness that happens when we are in a state of flow also contributes to our disregard of danger, and a quick review of the research into online gaming, surfing, and gym goers shows links between flow, risky behaviours and addiction.

If the focus of the flow activity is often associated with being unaware of surroundings, being in the kitchen making croissants does require the ability to shut out the chaos and noise of the Ainge family so that a step isn’t forgotten in the baking process and my cookery book has years of pencil ticks against each stage as testament to this!

Psychologically speaking, being in flow is good for us if it’s not tipping us into risky behaviour, it increases our enjoyment, and it brings pleasure, and whilst croissant making did not result in a dangerous, transcendent or spiritual experience for me, the sensation of kneading the dough, and using hands to roll out connected me to the present moment, unsurprisingly, mindfulness is related to some aspects of flow.

Brains are very rarely still, quiet or not thinking about stuff, but I find mindfulness easy to achieve because it doesn’t have to be quiet or achieved in a yoga class. Home-made croissants might be a huge faff but they are a low risk activity and they taste amazing, the process of making them this year without the pressure of deadlines created an unexpected moment of mindfulness that was long overdue.

The recipe I use is here , don’t let the 16-17 hours put you off as the reward is in the process and the eating.