Causal loop diagrams as a de-escalation technique

Özge Pala, Dirk J Vriens and Jac AM Vennix
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Özge Pala: Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey
Dirk J Vriens: Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Jac AM Vennix: Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2015, vol. 66, issue 4, 593-601

Abstract: Escalation of commitment, the tendency of decision makers to keep on investing in losing courses of action, has been shown to be a costly decision bias that affects many areas of decision making. Even though escalation is a widely studied phenomenon, there has been comparatively little research on how to avoid this bias. The present study focuses on de-escalation of commitment and proposes that causal loop diagrams (CLDs) can help to decrease escalating commitment to a failing course of action. By means of an experiment, this study shows that using a CLD decreases escalation tendencies.

Date: 2015
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