The trap of affiramtion: Hidden costs of de-escalating commitment through self-affirmation

Escalation of commitment is fueled by the need to justify earlier decisions. Drawing on the motivated cognition literature, we examine how self-affirmation processes influence self-justification needs and thus affect escalation decisions. Study 1 demonstrated that affirming one's global values before recommitting resources reduced escalation. Study 2 found that whereas affirming traits that were irrelevant to an earlier poor decision reduced escalation, affirming decision-relevant traits ironically increased escalation. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated that whereas high self-esteem was associated with reduced escalation when primed following a poor decision, high self-esteem increased escalation when primed before making a poor decision. Across three studies, using three instantiations of self-affirmations and two measures of escalation, our results highlight the benefits and costs of using self-affirmation as a vehicle to de-escalate commitment; affirmations can either reduce self-justification needs by mobilizing resources for maintaining self-integrity or increase self-justification needs by highlighting self-standards that are not being met.