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<p>First demonstrated by Staw (1976), escalation of commitment is the tendency for an individual to increase their commitment to a failing course of action when they are personally responsible for the negative consequences. An attempt was made to replicate this finding and test whether individual differences in numeracy and cognitive reflection could help explain such an effect. No evidence for escalation of commitment amongst the participants was found (<italic>N</italic> = 365). Participants simply invested more in more promising projects. Also, no evidence was found that numeracy or cognitive reflection predict escalation behaviour. The validity of escalation of commitment behaviour is discussed which suggests that future work should look to explore the boundary conditions of such an effect.</p>
</abstract>

First demonstrated by Staw (1976), escalation of commitment is the tendency for an individual to increase their commitment to a failing course of action when they are personally responsible for the negative consequences. An attempt was made to replicate this finding and test whether individual differences in numeracy and cognitive reflection could help explain such an effect. No evidence for escalation of commitment amongst the participants was found (N = 365). Participants simply invested more in more promising projects. Also, no evidence was found that numeracy or cognitive reflection predict escalation behaviour. The validity of escalation of commitment behaviour is discussed which suggests that future work should look to explore the boundary conditions of such an effect.

Escalation of commitment is independent of numeracy and cognitive reflection. Failed replication and extension of Staw (1976)

University of Waterloo Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology Building

Economics and Business Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

First demonstrated by Staw (1976), escalation of commitment is the tendency for an individual to increase their commitment to a failing course of action when...

Escalation of commitment is independent of numeracy and cognitive reflection. Failed replication and extension of Staw (1976)

Published Online: Jul 20, 2021

Page range: 5 - 16

Received: Jan 30, 2021

Accepted: Jun 25, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18559/ebr.2021.2.2

Keywords
escalation of commitment, sunk cost, numeracy, cognitive reflection

© 2021 Michał Białek et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Escalation of commitment is independent of numeracy and cognitive reflection. Failed replication and extension of Staw (1976)

Published Online: Jul 20, 2021

Page range: 5 - 16

Received: Jan 30, 2021

Accepted: Jun 25, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18559/ebr.2021.2.2

Keywordsescalation of commitment, sunk cost, numeracy, cognitive reflection

© 2021 Michał Białek et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Keywords
escalation of commitment, sunk cost, numeracy, cognitive reflection