Escalation of commitment

Escalation of commitment is a pattern of decision-making in which individuals or groups continue to invest in a chosen course of action despite mounting evidence that the decision is wrong or that the project is unlikely to succeed. The phenomenon has been studied in organizational behavior, economics, psychology, and sociology. It commonly arises after substantial resources—such as time, money, effort, or reputation—have been invested, and is often described in the research literature as "irrational" because it violates standard cost–benefit reasoning and persists even when superior alternatives are available.

Economists and behavioral scientists use the related term sunk-cost fallacy to describe situations in which past, irrecoverable investments ("sunk costs") are used to justify further investment of money, time, or effort, even when new evidence suggests that continuing will yield worse outcomes than changing course.

In sociology and social psychology, similar patterns are sometimes called irrational escalation of commitment or commitment bias. The underlying idea is captured in expressions such as "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging" and the warning against "throwing good money after bad". Researchers have also examined the opposite process, de-escalation of commitment, which concerns how individuals and organizations reduce or withdraw support from failing courses of action.