Construal level theory and escalation of commitment

Abstract

Escalation of commitment causes people to continue a failing course of action. We study the role of construal level in such escalation of commitment. Consistent with the widely held view of construal level as a primed effect, we employed a commonly used prime for manipulating this construct in a laboratory experiment. Our findings revealed that the prime failed to produce statistically significant differences in construal level, which was measured using the Behavior Identification Form (BIF). Furthermore, there was no effect of the prime on escalation of commitment, or on constructs that have previously been linked to construal level such as the perceived importance of feasibility considerations relative to desirability considerations, and the number of pros and cons that subjects can think of.Interestingly, however, subjects’ actual construal level scores on the BIF were found to significantly affect escalation. Specifically, our findings show that people with a low construal level are less willing to continue a failing project. This relation is mediated by the perceived importance of the feasibility of the project relative to its desirability. For people with a low construal level, the perceived importance of feasibility relative to desirability is higher, which in turn makes escalation of commitment less likely.Our findings are consistent with prior research suggesting that priming construal level may not always be effective. Thus, while construal level has typically been regarded as a state-like variable that can be primed, in this study, we show that construal level may also be considered as a trait.

Are social and traditional entrepreneurial intentions really that different?

“…Schindehutte and Morris, 2016) where students have real-life experiences in concrete contexts (Leitch et al, 2012, as in poverty; are particularly important for promoting psychological closeness and increasing the feasibility of a behavior or event (e.g. Benschop et al, 2020). By taking entrepreneurial action and practicing (Neck et al, 2014) in social and commercially oriented contexts, students decrease the temporal, spatial and hypothetical distance to entrepreneurship, learn to focus on details and thus develop their concrete entrepreneurial mindset.…”

Avatar-Based Feedback in Job Interview Training Impacts Action Identities and Anxiety

“…We can expand our theory based on findings from previous studies, which have demonstrated that people with higher construal levels can think of more benefits for a project and are more likely to continue as a result of negative feedback [86]. In contrast, people move to lower-level identities when the task is difficult, or complex, or when their performance is disrupted [34].…”

Exploring the determinants of reinvestment decisions: Sense of personal responsibility, preferences, and loss framing

“…The incentivized poker-based task used in the present experiments has several advantages over standard EoC paradigms such as hypothetical investment scenarios (e.g., Staw, 1976;Garland and Newport, 1991;Schulz-Hardt et al, 2009;Feldman and Wong, 2018;Benschop et al, 2020;Lee et al, 2020), or paradigms using Doerflinger et al 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1025181 Frontiers in Psychology 16 frontiersin.org deception (e.g., Strube and Lott, 1984;Schulz-Hardt et al, 2009). The rules of the task are fully and transparently described to the participants.…”