Escalation of commitment

Escalation of commitment refers to a pattern of behavior in which an individual or group, when faced with increasingly negative outcomes from some decision, action, and investment, will continue rather than alter their course—something which is irrational, but in alignment with decisions and actions previously made.

Economists and behavioral scientists use a related term, sunk cost fallacy, to describe the justification of increased investment of money, time, lives, etc. in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment ("sunk costs"); despite new evidence suggesting that the cost, beginning immediately, of continuing the decision outweighs the expected benefit. In the context of military conflicts, sunk costs in terms of money spent and lives lost are often used to justify continued involment.

In sociology, irrational escalation of commitment or commitment bias describe similar behaviours; and the phenomenon and the sentiment underlying it are reflected in such proverbial images as "Throwing good money after bad" or "In for a penny, in for a pound".

Escalation of commitment was first described by Barry M. Staw in his 1976 paper, "Knee deep in the big muddy: A study of escalating commitment to a chosen course of action".

Researchers, inspired by the work of Staw, conducted studies that tested factors, situations and causes of escalation of commitment. The research introduced other analyses of situations and how people approach problems and make decisions. Some of the earliest work stemmed from events in which this phenomenon had an effect and help explain the phenomenon.

Over the past few decades, researchers have followed and analyzed many examples of the escalation of commitment to a situation. The heightened situations are explained in three elements. Firstly, a situation has a costly amount of resources such as time, money and people invested in the project. Next, past behavior leads up to an apex in time where the project has not met expectations or could in a cautious state of decline. Lastly, these problems all force a decision-maker to make choices that include the options of continuing to pursue a project until completion by adding additional costs, or canceling the project altogether.

Researchers have also developed an argument regarding how escalation of commitment is observed in two different categories. Many researchers believe that the need to escalate resources is linked to expectancy theory. "According to such a viewpoint, decision makers assess the probability that additional resource allocations will lead to goal attainment, as well as the value of goal attainment (i.e., rewards minus costs), and thereby generate a subjective expected utility associated with the decision to allocate additional resources." The next phase of the escalation process is self-justification and rationalizing if the decision the leader made used resources well, if the resources being used were used to make positive change, and assuring themselves that the decision they chose was right. Leaders must balance the costs and benefits of any problem in order to come up with a final decision. What matters most often in assuring the leader that they made the right choice regardless of the final outcome is if their decision is what others believed in.

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