User:James B64/sandbox

Escalation of Commitment
Decision makers, whether at an organisational or national level, can come across the dilemma of whether to continue with an operation or withdraw from it. The escalation of commitment heuristic demonstrates that people often tend to lock themselves into losing courses of action in the hopes that investing more resources into an operation will turn around losses. Cognitive determinates that can influence escalation of commitment include self-justification, problem framing, sunk costs, goal substitution, self-efficacy, accountability, and illusion of control. The general flow of events that causes implementation of the escalation of commitment heuristic are as follows:

1.      A large amount of resources is invested into an operation and cannot be recovered (sunk cost).

2.      The operation performs poorly and provides the decision maker with negative feedback.

3.      The decision maker continues to pour investment into the operation with the hope of turning it around, hence reflecting the escalation of commitment heuristic.