Table Of ContentSSSP
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
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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.
