Rechtfertigungsdruck und eskalierendes Commitment
Third party funded individual grant
Start date : 01.01.2003
End date : 31.12.2005
Project details
Short description
The process of escalation was investigated within the framework of dynamic experimental paradigms, and the influence of various justification manipulations on behaviour and cognitive processes was then analysed in three experiments.
Scientific Abstract
Previous research on escalating commitment suffers from three crucial weaknesses. (1) The duty of justification (responsibility) of the decision-makers was identified as a central constraint. Unfortunately, this concept has been used too undifferentiated. In particular, the question of the pressure of self-justification arising from participation in the initial investment decision was not clearly enough distinguished from the obligation to justify the procedure and the result of the investments made. (2) In most cases, only selective decisions (especially a decision following a failure) were examined, which means that the dynamics of escalation (namely multiple positive decisions despite repeated setbacks) can only be insufficiently investigated. (3) Finally, it was largely ignored that investment after setbacks cannot simply be interpreted in general terms as "escalation", but that it can (also) be an effort to learn, persist or test alternative strategies. The process of escalation was investigated within the framework of dynamic experimental paradigms, and the influence of various justification manipulations on behaviour and cognitive processes was then analysed in three experiments.
