ESCALATING COMMITMENT TO A FAILING COURSE OF ACTION - SEPARATING THE ROLES OF CHOICE AND JUSTIFICATION

The escalation of commitment to a failing course of action is often attributed to self-justification motives that presumably are evoked by personal responsibility for initiating the original action (e.g., B. M. Staw, 1976). Nevertheless, personal responsibility-operationalized as choice-has been confounded with public justification, which might engender self-presentation concerns. The present laboratory experiment extended past research by examining the impact of choice on escalating commitment with and without justification that was either public or private. Results showed that escalating commitment was not significantly different in conditions of public or private justification but that justification was necessary in addition to choice itself. The data suggest that justification of past choices may be necessary for escalating commitment.