Abstract
There are many instances in which individuals can become locked into a costly course of action. Because it is often possible for persons who have suffered a setback to recoup their losses through an even greater commitment of resources to the same course of action, a cycle of escalating commitment can be produced. In this paper, I review recent research on the escalation of commitment and try to integrate its complex and often conflicting determinants.
REFERENCES
- Dissonance theory: Progress and problems. In Abelson R.Aronson E.McGuire W.Newcomb T.Rosenberg M.Tannenbaum P. (Eds.), Theories of cognitive consistency. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1968. Google Scholar
- The social animal. San Francisco: Freeman, 1976. Google Scholar
- Psychological modeling: Conflicting theories. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1971. Google Scholar
- Explorations in cognitive dissonance. New York: Wiley, 1962. Google Scholar
- The effect on dissonance of surprise consequences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1970, 6, 420–431. Google Scholar
- An attribution theory of leadership. In Staw B.Salancik G. (Eds.), New directions in organizational behavior. Chicago: St. Clair Press, 1977. Google Scholar
- Responses to failure: The effects of choice and responsibility on impression management. Academy of Management Journal, in press. Google Scholar
- Reforms as experiments. American Psychologist, 1979, 24, 409–429. Google Scholar
- Personal responsibility-for-consequences: An integration and extension of the “forced compliance” literature. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1972, 8, 558–593. Google Scholar
- The moderating effects of strategy, visibility, and involvement on allocation behavior: An extension of Staw's escalation paradigm. Organizational Behavior & Human Performance, 1980, 26, 172–192. Google Scholar
- Personal responsibility and dissonance: The role of foreseen consequences: An integration and extension of the “forced compliance” literature. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 1971, 18, 354–363. Google Scholar
- The theory of decision making. Psychological Bulletin, 1954, 51, 380–417. Google Scholar
- A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957. Google Scholar
- Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal & Social Psychology, 1959, 58, 203–210. Google Scholar
- Belief, attitude, intention, and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1975. Google Scholar
- Persistence: Effects of commitment and justification processes on efforts to succeed with a course of action, Doctoral dissertation in progress, University of Illinois, 1981. Google Scholar
- The trapped administrator: The effects of job insecurity and policy resistance upon commitment to a course of action. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1979, 24, 449–471. Google Scholar
- The Gallup opinion index. Princeton, N.J.: American Institute of Public Opinion, March 1978. Google Scholar
- Role of foreseen, foreseeable, and unforeseeable behavior consequences in the arousal of cognitive dissonance. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 1979, 37, 1179–1185. Google Scholar
- The presidency versus Jimmy Carter. Fortune, December 4, 1978, p. 58. Google Scholar
- Victims of groupthink. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1972. Google Scholar
- Bad loan psychology: Entrapment and commitment in financial lending. Working paper 80-25, Graduate School of Business Administration, Duke University, 1980. Google Scholar
- Decision freedom as a determinant of the role of incentive magnitude in attitude change. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 1967, 6, 245–254. Google Scholar
- Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 1979, 37, 2098–2109. Google Scholar
-
Money down the drain . Time, June 25, 1979, p. 26. Google Scholar - Bad decisions: Effects of volition, locus of causality, and negative consequences on attitude change. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 1972, 30, 217–227. Google Scholar
- The ambiguity of leadership. Academy of Management Review, 1977, 2, 104–112. (a) Link , Google Scholar
- Power and resource allocation in organizations. In Staw B.Salancik G. (Eds.), New directions in organizational behavior. Chicago: St. Clair Press, 1977. (b) Google Scholar
- Upward communication in industrial hierarchies. Human Relations, 1962, 15, 3–16. Google Scholar
- The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. In Berkowitz L. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 10). New York: Academic Press, 1977. Google Scholar
- Pentagon papers. New York: Bantam Books, 1971. Google Scholar
- The crux of leadership. Time, December 11, 1978, p. 44. Google Scholar
- Behavioral decision theory. Annual Review of Psychology, 1977, 28, 1–39. Google Scholar
-
The state of Jimmy Carter . Time, February 5, 1979, p. 11. Google Scholar - Attitudinal and behavioral consequences of changing a major organizational reward: A natural field experiment. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 1974, 29, 742–751. Google Scholar
- Knee-deep in the big muddy: A study of escalating commitment to a chosen course of action. Organizational Behavior & Human Performance, 1976, 76, 27–44. Google Scholar
- Rationality and justification in organizational life. In Staw B.Cummings L. (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 2). Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1980. Google Scholar
- Escalation: Some determinants of commitment to a previously chosen course of action. Human Relations, 1977, 30, 431–450. Google Scholar
- Commitment to a policy decision: A multitheoretical perspective. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1978, 23, 40–64. Google Scholar
- Commitment in an experimenting society: An experiment on the attribution of leadership from administrative scenarios. Journal of Applied Psychology, 1980, 65, 249–260. Google Scholar
- Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 1974, 185, 1124–1131. Google Scholar
- Why should my conscience bother me? In Heilbroner A. (Ed.), In the name of profit. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972. Google Scholar
- Work and motivation. New York: Wiley, 1964. Google Scholar
- Reduction of cognitive dissonance through task enhancement and effort expenditure. Journal of Abnormal & Social Psychology, 1964, 68, 533–539. Google Scholar
- Motivation reconsidered: The concept of competence. Psychological Review, 1959, 66, 297–334. Google Scholar
- Perspectives on cognitive dissonance. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Association, 1976. Google Scholar