SSSP Springer Series in Social Psychology SSSP Joel Brockner Jeffrey Rubin Z. Entrapment in Escalating Conflicts A Social Psychological Analysis .i- Springer-Verlag ~ New York Berlin Heidelberg Tokyo Joel Brockner Jeffrey Z. Rubin Graduate School of Business Department of Psychology Columbia University Tufts University Uris Hall Medford, MA 02155 New York, NY 10027 U.S.A. U.S.A. With 3 Illustrations Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Brockner, Joel. Entrapment in escalating conflicts. (Springer series in social psychology) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Interpersonal conflict. 2. Social psychology. 3. Social conflict. I. Rubin, Jeffrey Z. II. Title. III. Series. HM291.B77 1985 303.6 84-23645 © 1985 by Springer-Verlag New York Inc. Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1s t edition 1985 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form without written permission from Springer-Verlag, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010, U.S.A. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc., in this publication, even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that such names, as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may accordingly be used freely by anyone. Typeset by Ampersand Publisher Services, Inc., Rutland, Vermont. 9 8 7 6 5 432 1 ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-9551-8 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-5072-2 DOl: 10.1 007/978-1-4612-5072-2 Preface It was just over 12 years ago that we first sat down together to talk about psychological traps. In the relative calm of late afternoons, feet draped casually over the seedy furnishings of the Tufts psychology department, we entertained each other with personal anecdotes about old cars, times spent lost on hold, and the Shakespearean concerns of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Lord and Lady Macbeth, and other notables. Eventually, informed by our many illustrations and the excitement that their repeated telling engendered in the two of us, we began to move more formally into trap analysis. How do you know a trap when you see one? What are the shared characteristics of all psychological traps, regardless of origin, scope, or complexity? What are the key conceptual elements in any effort to differentiate among the traps of the world? What factors make us more or less apt to fall prey to entrapment? These were some of the questions that arose during these initial meetings. A series of weekly meetings stretched over the ensuing years-interrupted temporarily by various exigencies-and led eventually to a research program that grew to involve a number of students and faculty colleagues. At the time, of course, we did not regard our work as a "research program"; rather, even as our experiments proceeded to answer two burning questions at a time, they managed to raise three or four new issues that we had not anticipated before. Aided by the generous support of the National Science Foundation, our research continued to lead us down new-and for us interesting-pathways, until we decided that the time had come to pause and take stock of where we had come from, and how far we had yet to go. Our reflection and reconnoitering has led to this book-a much needed opportunity to take a close look at the empirical evidence bearing on entrapment, to pose questions of these data that are not typically acceptable in the standard psychological journals, and to organize some integrating themes and concerns. In short, this book has made it possible for us to chronicle what is known, and is yet to be discovered, about the phenomenon that we have dubbed entrapment. The book's 11 chapters have been organized to reflect our own special slant VI Preface on the material of entrapment. Chapter 1 uses a number of everyday illustrations to introduce the concept of entrapment. We advance the defining criteria of entrapment, and in so doing attempt to specify those phenomena that are to be included and excluded from the subsequent analysis. Chapter 2 introduces the reader to the half-dozen research paradigms that have been developed over the last decade or so for the study of entrapping behavior. Only by having some reasonable degree of familiarity with the tools of research in this area, we believe, is it possible to make sense of the areas of convergent and divergent experimental evidence that have emerged. Chapter 3 argues for the robustness of the entrapment phenomenon. Drawing upon the work of three major research efforts to study entrapment, we develop evidence in support of the phenomenon's ubiquity, as well as researchers' ability to study it under controlled laboratory conditions. In Chapters 4 through 6 we tum to the task of documenting the set of factors that have been found to influence the degree of entrapment. All of these factors seem to fall into one of two broad categories: nonsocial versus social considerations. Included in the nonsocial category are factors pertaining to the economic feasibility of continuing to invest one's resources, the matter in which such investments are made, and so forth. These and other nonsocial considera tions are addressed in Chapter 4. Chapters 5 and 6, in tum, examine the more extensive body of work that is pertinent to social considerations: whether investments are made by individuals or groups, the effects of competing against nature versus another person, the attributes of this other person, the effects of an observing audience, the role of modeling in entrapment, and so forth. Having charted much of the research terrain by this point in the book, we move away in Chapter 7 from a listing of antecedent and dependent considerations to a more thorough exploration of the entrapment process per se. One of the hallmarks of entrapping situations, we argue, is that they are constantly changing; problems that seem eminently soluble in the present have a nasty way of shifting beneath one's feet, becoming far more difficult to solve with each passing moment or expenditure of additional resources. Since entrapment ultimately must be analyzed and understood as a process, Chapter 7 provides the necessary exploration of these dynamic considerations. Chapter 8 deals with the impact of individual difference variables on entrapment behavior. Are some people more prone to entrapment than others? What is the effect of person-situation interactions on escalation of commitment decisions? Is it possible to "explain" the large within-condition variability in entrapment behavior typically found in the experiments reported in earlier chapters? These are some of the issues addressed in this chapter. Chapter 9 focuses on the reduction of entrapment. On the basis of research conducted by our colleagues and ourselves, we use this chapter to indicate and discuss those factors that bear on people's ability to avoid entrapment to begin with, and to escape entrapment once they have been caught. Given the initial premise with which our joint exploration of entrapment began-namely, the assumption that entrapment is a phenomenon that pervades everyday life-it is only fitting that we tum our attention to the possible Preface vii practical applications of entrapment theory and research. This is the focus of Chapter 10, an effort to spin out some of the implications of our work and that of our associates for the analysis and reduction of entrapment in interpersonal, organizational, and even international settings. Chapter 11 concludes our exploration of entrapment, not by offering a recitation of what has already been presented elsewhere in the book, but by suggesting a few of the areas that warrant further thought and development. Some of the major assumptions that have guided entrapment research are highlighted in this chapter, and analysis of these assumptions is presented in the service of tying entrapment more closely to some of its conceptual and ideological brethren. Acknowledgments Numerous individuals made significant contributions to the writing of this book. Several professional colleagues-Max Bazerman and Gerrit Wolf in partiCUlar, as well as Barry Staw-provided very insightful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. Alan Teger stimulated much of our thinking, both by participating in research meetings and by writing his book, Too Much Invested to Quit. Many of our students contributed mightily to our research efforts, most notably Sinaia Nathanson and Bob Houser. Others lending a hand included Gregg Birnbaum, Dan Brenner, Martin Countryman, Janet Deitcher, Clotilde Didomenico, Judy Fine, Alan Friend, Tom Hamilton, John Harbeck, Elaine Lang, Kathy Lloyd, Mary Lloyd, Laurie Losen, Bill McKersie, Maritere Mendez, Kiki Olivera, Charles Samuelson, Susan Small-Weil, Bud Shaw, Barbara Thomas, Beth Turetsky, Karen Wilner, and Julie Wolf. We are also indebted to the staff of Springer-Verlag New York for greatly facilitating the completion of this project. The National Science Foundation generously supported much of our research, and The University of Arizona provided a fertile environment in which several of the book's chapters were written. In addition, we thank Dolly Hernandez, Jean Intoppa, and Gail Shulman for their careful preparation of the manuscript. Several other very special individuals provided much-needed support, love, and inspiration during the writing of this book. The first author's mother, Helen Brockner, passed away while the book was in progress. She would have been proud and pleased to see this work in its current form. The first author's mother in-law, Esther Jacobs, who also recently passed away, offered frequent encouragement for the "ensnarement book." We are saddened that she too cannot share in this moment. Finally, our wives, Audrey Jacobs Brockner and Carol Rubin, provided the love, caring, and nurturance needed to see the project through to its successful completion. We are delighted to dedicate this book to them with love and affection. New York, NY JOEL BROCKNER Medford, MA JEFFREY Z. RUBIN January 1985 Contents Preface .................................................. v 1. Introduction 1 Toward Some Generalizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Summary ........................................... 7 2. Experimental Research Methods 9 The Dollar Auction Game ............................. 10 The Counter Game ................................... 12 The Jigsaw Puzzle Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Carnival Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 The Waiting Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Role-Playing Simulations .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Closing Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 3. Preliminary Experimental Analyses of Entrapment ...... 21 Overview 21 Summary 30 4. Some Nonsocial Antecedents of Entrapment 33 Expectancy Value Antecedents ........................ . 34 Decision Structure Antecedents ....................... . 42 Summary 55 x Contents 5. Social Influence and Entrapment ...................... 57 Social Versus Nonsocial Entrapment .................... 58 Sex Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Attraction, Aggression, and Entrapment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Modeling and Entrapment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Group Decision Making and Entrapment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 6. The Role of Self-Presentation in Entrapment 101 Face Saving and Entrapment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Self-Diagnosticity and Entrapment ...................... 126 7. The Psychological Process of Entrapment 145 Some Psychological Consequences of Entrapment . . . . . . . . 146 The Psychological Process of Entrapment: Implications for Behavior .............................. 158 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 8. Individual Differences 181 The Search for the Entrapment-Prone Personality, or Individual Differences as "Main Effects" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Personality X Situation Interactionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Individual Differences as Mediating Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 9. Toward the Reduction of Entrapment 193 Factors Decreasing Entrapment: An Overview . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Cognitive Deterrents of Entrapment ..................... 196 Motivational Deterrents to Entrapment .................. 211 Concluding Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 10. Applications 223 Entrapment in Work Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Entrapment in Interpersonal Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Contents xi Entrapment in Political Decision Making ............... . 245 Summary .......................................... . 248 11. Conclusions ........................................ . 251 Decisional Duality 251 The Role of Choice 253 The Virtues of Entrapment ........................... . 254 A Broader Trap Backdrop ............................ . 257 Understanding the Cause of Escalating Conflict ......... . 258 References .............................................. . 261 Author Index 269 SUbject Index 273 Chapter 1 Introduction Some of the most prominent lines of social-psychological inquiry have stemmed from researchers' observations of significant (indeed, sometimes shocking) real life occurrences. Consider, for example, the substantial research attention directed to an area that has since come to be known as "bystander inter vention." Kitty Genovese was murdered late one night in 1964 as she returned to her New York City apartment. Although at least 38 individuals witnessed the crime, not one person did so much as call the police to inform them that a murder was in progress. The collective inaction of the 38 observers spurred many studies, focused on the conditions under which people will and will not aid victims in emergency situations (e.g., Latane & Darley, 1970). Similarly, the research by Milgram (1974) on obedience to authority was derived from his observations of Nazi war criminals, who were able to commit heinous crimes perhaps because they believed that they were only following the orders of their commanding officers. Our research on entrapment was also stimulated by observation of real-life events. Unlike the previous examples, however, our attention was not caught by anyone particular earthshaking incident. Rather, we were struck by the wide variety of situations in which decision makers persist in a conflictual, failing course of action in order to justify prior commitments made in pursuit of some goal. Consider the following illustrations: 1. Suppose you have been waiting 15 minutes for a bus to take you someplace to which you could have just as easily walked. As you continue to wait, you begin to experience an interesting kind of conflict. On the one hand, you want to start walking; you feel impatient, even foolish, about not starting to walk immediately. On the other hand, you also feel compelled to continue waiting for a number of reasons. First, you believe (probably accurately) that the longer you wait the more likely the bus is to arrive. Second, and of greater relevance to the concept of entrapment, you may feel that the 15 minutes you have already waited will have been spent in vain if you were to start walking.