TITLE

Escalation of Commitment to an Ineffective Course of Action: The Effect of Feedback Having Negative Implications for Self-Identity

AUTHOR(S)

Brockner, Joel; Houser, Robert; Birnbaum, Gregg; Lloyd, Kathy; Deitcher, Janet; Nathanson, Sinaia; Rubin, Jeffrey Z.

PUB. DATE

March 1986

SOURCE

Administrative Science Quarterly;Mar1986, Vol. 31 Issue 1, p109

SOURCE TYPE

Academic Journal

DOC. TYPE

Article

ABSTRACT

Entrapment refers to the process by which organizational decision makers escalate their commitment to an ineffective course of action in order to justify the allocation of previous resources. This paper presents the results of two laboratory experiments that explored the effect on entrapment of individuals' perceptions that the ineffectiveness of prior resource allocations had negative implications for their self-identity. The first experiment showed that entrapment was greater when subjects were told that their in- effective performance reflected their self-identity than when they were told that it did not. The second experiment explored the joint effects on entrapment of performance feedback and the extent to which the feedback was perceived to have negative implications for self-identity. Feedback was manipulated so that half the subjects were told their performance was increasingly ineffective and half that it was increasingly more effective, though still not successful. Half of each group was told performance was due to skill and half that it was mainly due to luck. Entrapment was greater in the skill than the luck condition among those who received the somewhat positive feedback, but the skill-luck difference in entrapment was significantly reduced among those who received negative feedback. Practical and theoretical implications of these and other related findings are discussed.

ACCESSION #

4005675

Tags: ORGANIZATIONAL sociology;  ORGANIZATIONAL behavior;  DECISION making;  IDENTITY (Psychology);  RESOURCE allocation;  ORGANIZATIONAL research;  SOCIAL action;  SOCIAL psychology;  INDUSTRIAL management;  PERFORMANCE evaluation;  ORGANIZATIONAL commitment -- Psychological aspects;  OCCUPATIONAL roles

 

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