Abstract
Escalation of commitment to a failing course of action occurs in the presence of (a) sunk costs, (b) negative feedback that things are deviating from expectations, and (c) a decision between escalation and de-escalation. Most of the literature to date has focused on sunk costs, yet we offer a new perspective on the classic escalation-of-commitment phenomenon by focusing on the impact of negative feedback. On the basis of the inaction-effect bias, we theorized that negative feedback results in the tendency to take action, regardless of what that action may be. In four experiments, we demonstrated that people facing escalation-decision situations were indeed action oriented and that framing escalation as action and de-escalation as inaction resulted in a stronger tendency to escalate than framing de-escalation as action and escalation as inaction (mini-meta-analysis effect d = 0.37, 95% confidence interval = [0.21, 0.53]).
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 537-548 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Psychological Science |
Volume | 29 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Apr 2018 |
Keywords
- Journal Article
- ACTION ORIENTATION
- DECISION
- BIG MUDDY
- BIAS
- sunk costs
- inaction effect
- open materials
- RISK
- escalation of commitment
- open data
- PSYCHOLOGY
- ATTITUDES
- action effect
- preregistered
- action-inaction framing
- STATE ORIENTATION
- REGRET
- PROGRESS