⚠️ Mistakes & pitfalls
The negotiator's cognitive traps
Classic mistakes and negotiator biases: M. Bazerman & M. Neale ("Negotiating Rationally"), D. Kahneman (biases and heuristics), L. Thompson.
Full detail in the “Origin & history” section below.
Author of the library
Negotiation lecturer at KEDGE Business School
A rare threefold background serving negotiation: teaching, commercial justice and audit, backed by experience as a company director in Bordeaux.
Escalation of commitment refers to a negotiator's tendency to persist stubbornly in a course already embarked upon, not because it remains rational, but to justify the resources (time, money, energy, reputation) already committed. The trap rests on the sunk-cost error: instead of reasoning about expected future gains, one reasons about past losses one refuses to acknowledge. The more visible and personal the initial investment, the greater the pressure to persevere, even to the point of concluding a value-destroying agreement. It is as much an individual bias as a relational dynamic that a skilled opposing party can exploit.
At a glance
Vigilance: high (7.0/10) · Preparation required: 3/10
Indicative profile: it situates the “Mistakes & pitfalls in negotiation” family as the Mistakes & pitfalls school practises it, not this technique taken in isolation. Techniques from the same family and school therefore share the same profile. NEGOCOACH editorial rating out of 10, non-experimental · the higher the “relational risk” value, the more costly the technique is to the relationship.
NEGOCOACH assessment
Tactical potential 3.7/10 (effectiveness, impact, discretion) and vigilance high (relational and ethical risk): two distinct readings, deliberately never merged into a single score that would reward risk. NEGOCOACH editorial rating calibrated from the “Mistakes & pitfalls in negotiation” family and the “Mistakes & pitfalls” school. Each criterion is rated out of 10; click to understand what it measures.
How far the technique can carry the negotiation in the intended direction when it is well executed.
Strength of the effect produced on the counterpart's perceptions, emotions and decisions.
How hard it is for the other party to notice the technique is being used. A high value = very discreet.
The information, analysis and rehearsal required upfront to use it effectively.
Potential cost to the relationship and to trust if the technique is spotted, refused or fails. A high value = riskier.
Moral acceptability: fairness, transparency and respect for the counterpart's autonomy. A high value = more defensible.
Documented school
The school this technique stems from is documented by recognised work and established practice, without experimental consensus. This indicator qualifies the school, not this technique taken in isolation.
Indicative NEGOCOACH editorial rating, for teaching purposes. For “Relational risk”, a high value signals a cost to the relationship, not a quality.
The concept was formalised by the organisational psychologist Barry M. Staw in his founding article "Knee-Deep in the Big Muddy: A Study of Escalating Commitment to a Chosen Course of Action" (Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 1976), inspired by the obstinacy of American leaders in the Vietnam War. The underlying cognitive mechanism, the sunk-cost effect, was experimentally supported by Hal R. Arkes and Catherine Blumer in "The Psychology of Sunk Cost" (1985). Jerry Ross and Staw then extended the analysis to organisational fiascos, and Joel Brockner proposed a theoretical synthesis (1992).
Escalation of commitment is the process by which a decision-maker, having invested resources in a course of action that proves to be failing, increases their commitment instead of reducing or abandoning it, in order to rationalise after the fact the costs already borne. In negotiation, it translates into maintaining or worsening concessions, delays or financial stakes in a deal that is failing, under the combined effect of sunk costs, the need for self-consistency and the fear of losing face. Operationally, it is spotted when the justification for continuing rests on the past ("we've already given so much") rather than on the future expectation of gain.
Application by context
A salesperson who has multiplied meetings, demonstrations and discounts for a big prospect accepts increasingly degraded terms so as "not to lose" a ten-month sales cycle, turning a profitable client into a loss-making contract.
A buyer who has already validated a supplier, launched audits and signed letters of intent presses on despite price and quality slippages, because admitting the mistake would mean cancelling months of internal work and disavowing themselves.
In an industrial dispute, management that has paid for weeks of strike and staked its credibility refuses a reasonable compromise so as "not to have lost all that for nothing", prolonging a deadlock more costly than the initial agreement.
During a hostage-taking or crisis, a negotiator who has already granted several trade-offs continues to give in to preserve the relational investment, whereas each concession strengthens the opponent's demand.
A government publicly committed to a reform or an intervention persists beyond reason so as not to disavow the human, financial and political resources already mobilised, retreat being experienced as an admission of failure.
A buyer who has paid for an appraisal, a survey and partial notary fees stubbornly overbids on a property whose defects come to light, so as not to "waste" these preliminary expenses that are in fact already lost.
In an international negotiation that has required long trips and costly relational rituals, a team gives in on essential points so as not to ruin the investment in time and face made on both sides.
In an inheritance or a divorce, one party prolongs a ruinous legal procedure because they have already paid thousands of euros in lawyer's fees, "going all the way" in a dispute where a settlement would nonetheless be more advantageous.
Counter-techniques
Negotiation is also played on defence. Here is how to recognise this technique when it is used against you, and turn it around.
The signals that give it away
The counters that defuse it
Turn it into an advantage
Name the manoeuvre: said out loud, a technique loses most of its power.
Reacting emotionally instead of coming back to the facts.
Strengths (as an analytical lens): the concept explains with precision seemingly irrational persistence behaviours and makes it possible to anticipate them; it provides an offensive tactical lever (leading the other to invest progressively in order to lock them in) and a powerful defensive framework. As a dynamic one is subjected to, by contrast, escalation is a weakness: it destroys value, biases the assessment of the BATNA, anchors the negotiator on the past rather than the future, and exposes them to manipulation through increasing stakes (foot-in-the-door, entanglement). Its manipulative strength is also its ethical fragility: as soon as it is named and made objective, it loses most of its grip.
Vigilance is greatest in long, sequential negotiations with increasing investment: complex sales cycles, strategic purchases, mergers and acquisitions, prolonged industrial disputes, litigation, large projects. The risk peaks when the commitment is public, when the decision-maker's personal responsibility is at stake, when the outcome is ambiguous (neither clear success nor clear failure) and when the organisational culture values perseverance and punishes the admission of error.
Political · The decisional quagmire, "Big Muddy" style, Staw coined the concept by analysing the American escalation in Vietnam: at each setback, the commitment in men and resources was increased to justify the losses already suffered, the logic "we have invested too much to give up" replacing the cold assessment of the chances of success. This pattern is directly transposable to negotiation: past losses wrongly become the central argument for maintaining a position, until the cumulative cost far exceeds the initial stake.
Business · The supplier contract one won't let go, Representative (unattributed) scenario: an SME has spent nine months selecting an IT integrator, with audits, workshops and deposits. Halfway through, cost and schedule overruns pile up and a competitor offers better. The management committee nonetheless refuses to change, because "we've already spent €200,000 and six months". This reasoning ignores that these €200,000 are lost whatever happens: all that matters is the comparison between the cost remaining to be paid to the current provider and that of a restart. By reasoning about the past, the SME locks itself into a project that will end up at nearly double the budget.
Defending yourself first requires naming the bias: ask yourself "if I discovered this file today, with no history, would I enter into it on these terms?". Reason exclusively about future marginal costs and gains, treating past investments as definitively lost. Set exit thresholds and a quantified BATNA ex ante, and reassess them coolly at each stage. Have critical decisions arbitrated by someone not involved in the initial commitment (the person in charge cannot be the judge of their own perseverance). Finally, expose the opponent's tactic: beware of sequences of small concessions requested "since we're already so close to the goal".
Ethically, deliberately exploiting a partner's escalation of commitment (pushing them to invest in order to lock them in, then hardening one's stance) amounts to manipulation and weakens the long-term relationship as well as the negotiator's reputation. Analytically, not all persistence is irrational: continuing may be justified when the future prospects genuinely remain favourable; the concept must not serve as an alibi for premature abandonment or disguised cowardice. The boundary between legitimate tenacity and biased obstinacy comes down to a single test: does the decision rest on the future expectation of gain or on the justification of past losses?
Related techniques and biases: the sunk-cost fallacy; the foot-in-the-door and the entanglement of successive small concessions; confirmation bias and the need for self-consistency (Festinger); loss aversion and the endowment effect (Kahneman-Tversky); commitment theory (Kiesler, Joule and Beauvois); on the defensive side, reframing on the BATNA and the logic of a planned "point of no return".
Quick exercise
Answer in your head, then reveal the solution. Memory is built through active recall.
Frequently asked questions
Escalation of commitment refers to a negotiator's tendency to persist stubbornly in a course already embarked upon, not because it remains rational, but to justify the resources (time, money, energy, reputation) already committed. The trap rests on the sunk-cost error: instead of reasoning about expected future gains, one reasons about past losses one refuses to acknowledge. The more visible and personal the initial investment, the greater the pressure to persevere, even to the point of concluding a value-destroying agreement. It is as much an individual bias as a relational dynamic that a skilled opposing party can exploit.
It sits on the line: effective, but it can tip into manipulation if it exploits an information asymmetry. Use it with measure and without deliberate deceit.
Reacting emotionally instead of coming back to the facts. The right reflex: slow down and reformulate.
NEGOCOACH does not assess the experimental validation of this technique in isolation. What we document is the grounding of its source school (Mistakes & pitfalls): documented school. Full detail is in the "At a glance" section of this page.
Practise with AI
Copy, paste into your assistant, replace the [brackets]. Works with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Mistral, Perplexity.
Build your plan before the meeting
You are an expert negotiation coach. Help me prepare to use the "Escalation of Commitment" technique in the following situation: [describe your situation]. Give me: the conditions for success, a 3-step script, my counterpart's likely objections and how to answer them.
Rehearse against an AI counterpart
Play the role of my counterpart in a negotiation. I am going to test the "Escalation of Commitment" technique. React realistically and with resistance, do not give in too quickly, then at the end analyse my performance and suggest 3 concrete improvements.
Analyse a past negotiation
Here is how my negotiation went: [paste the exchanges]. Analyse whether the "Escalation of Commitment" technique was used well, what worked, the mistakes made, and spell out precisely what I could have done better.
References
Founding works of the ⚠️ Mistakes & pitfalls school this technique belongs to.
Negotiating Rationally
BookM. Bazerman & M. Neale · 1992
Thinking, Fast and Slow
BookD. Kahneman · 2011
The sum of Kahneman's work on decision-making: two systems of thought, one fast and intuitive, the other slow and analytical, and the long list of biases that distort our judgements. Essential to understanding others... and yourself.
The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator
BookL. Thompson · 2015
Classic mistakes and negotiator biases: M. Bazerman & M. Neale ("Negotiating Rationally"), D. Kahneman (biases and heuristics), L. Thompson.
On video
Videos to picture Escalation of Commitment and anchor it through examples.
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Technique map
Every technique sits within a network: what it draws on, what it combines with, where it applies, and how to defend against it.
Spot its signals, neutralise it and turn it around with the defensive playbook on this page.
See the counter-techniquesEscalation of commitment refers to a negotiator's tendency to persist stubbornly in a course already embarked upon, not because it remains rational, but to justify the resources (time, money, energy, reputation) already committed. The trap rests on the sunk-cost error: instead of reasoning about expected future gains, one reasons about past losses one refuses to acknowledge. The more visible and personal the initial investment, the greater the pressure to persevere, even to the point of concluding a value-destroying agreement. It is as much an individual bias as a relational dynamic that a skilled opposing party can exploit.
Name the manoeuvre: said out loud, a technique loses most of its power.
Reacting emotionally instead of coming back to the facts.
Our programmes turn theory into a concrete advantage.