The escalation of commitment in political decision-making groups: a social identity approach

Sticking to our guns: social identity as a basis for the maintenance of commitment to faltering organizational projects

“…However, an important difference between this study and Experiment 1 was that here there was clear evidence that the greater willingness of participants in the group condition to maintain commitment to the organizational project was underpinned by an enhanced sense of social identification (see Figures 3 and 6). While related patterns have been identified in previous correlational research (Dietz-Uhler, 1996;Hogg & Hains, 1998) and in experimental studies using different independent variables (Turner & Pratkanis, 1994), to the best of our knowledge this is the first study to provide experimental evidence to support the view that social identity salience plays a role in maintenance of commitment of the form typically implicated in groupthink phenomena. Moreover, the fact that the study produced clear evidence of the success of the experimental manipulation allowed us to use structural equation modeling to establish that the increased social identification produced by assignment to the group condition partially mediated the impact of that manipulation on participants' ultimate commitment to the project.…”

Collective Action Control by Goals and Plans: Applying a Self-Regulation Perspective to Group Performance

“…For example, consistent with Shaw's findings, small groups have often been observed to outperform individuals in complex logic tasks (Laughlin, Bonner, & Miner, 2002;Laughlin, Hatch, Silver, & Boh, 2006;Laughlin, VanderStoep, & Hollingshead, 1991). However, group performance was inferior to individual performance when group members did not share or integrate all available information (Stasser & Titus, 1985, and when group members made decisions based on past investments rather than future prospects (Dietz-Uhler, 1996).…”

Showing engagement or not: The influence of social identification and group deadlines on individual control strategies

“…Apart from the aforementioned, the current studies suggest that future research might fruitfully explore the role of high levels of identification on group members’ contribution to sunk cost and escalation of commitment effects in group contexts of severely limited or lost opportunities for success (Bazerman, Giuliano, & Appelman, 1984; Dietz-Uhler, 1996; Kameda & Sugimori, 1993; Smith, Tindale, & Steiner, 1998; Street & Anthony, 1997; Whyte, 1993).…”