Escalation of Commitment
We increase commitment to a course of action already invested in, especially when we are responsible for past decisions.
Escalation of commitment (also known as irrational escalation) is a human behavior pattern in which an individual or group facing increasingly negative outcomes from some decision, action, or investment nevertheless continues this behavior instead of altering course. The actor escalates their commitment to the previous decision by allocating more resources to it, even when doing so is irrational.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Everyday life Failed IT Project Organizations continue pouring money into failed software projects because admitting failure would expose the original poor decision to scrutiny.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
You've spent six months developing a new app feature that's clearly not resonating with users. Instead of scrapping it, you allocate more resources to add a complex integration, hoping to make it work.
A startup founder keeps pitching to investors despite repeated rejections, believing the next meeting will be different because of all the work already done.
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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