The Role of Goal Source in Escalation of Commitment

Escalation of commitment is an important decision problem that occurs across different decision contexts. Recognizing that escalation involves one’s effort to achieve some form of a goal, researchers have attempted to understand escalation of commitment as a goal-pursuing activity. Prior research works have suggested that escalation situations consist of (1) an initial goal setting phase and (2) an escalation decision-making phase and have investigated how goal difficulty and goal specificity influence escalation decisions. However, they have neglected the potential role of the goal source in escalation situations. In this study, we aim to advance our understanding of escalation of commitment by examining the relationship between goal source and escalation. Specifically, by drawing on distinct characteristics of escalation situations, we conceptualize a new form of goal source, namely inherited goals, and examine its effect on escalation of commitment compared with self-set and assigned goals that are well-known goal sources in goal-setting theory (GST). We conducted two laboratory experiments and found evidence suggesting that individuals who had inherited goals (i.e., those who did not take part in initial goal setting and did not invest effort in pursuing the previous course of action) are less likely to fall into the escalation trap.