Browsing by Author "Ting, Hsuchi"
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Item THE EFFECT OF GOAL DISTANCE ON GOAL VALUE AND ESCALATION OF COMMITMENT(2009) Ting, Hsuchi; Wallsten, Thomas S; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Escalation of commitment describes individuals' tendencies to persist in a chosen course of action. The traditional account of escalation of commitment assumes that sunk cost is the primary antecedent for this behavior. However, it has been noted that high sunk costs are confounded with progress made toward a goal and hidden payoff information. Thus, the apparent escalation tendency may be a consequence of goal proximity and information search rather than of sunk costs. Experiments 1 and 2 show that individuals' tendencies to escalate reflect the classical goal-gradient effect after controlling for the sunk costs. Moreover, Experiment 1 also shows that controlling for progress toward the goal, increased sunk costs decreases escalation. In addition, Experiment 2 shows that individuals attribute more value to the goal as they get closer to it, thus providing an alternative explanation for escalation of commitment. Experiments 3a and 3b demonstrate that individuals committed to a course also devalue other course of actions not chosen. These results suggest a new interpretation for escalation of commitment and new approaches to guiding people to avoid it.Item Learning to communicate risk information in social groups(2007-04-23) Ting, Hsuchi; Wallsten, Thomas S.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Despite vigorous research on risk communication, little is known about the social forces that drive these choices. Erev, Wallsten, & Neal (1991) showed that forecasters learn to select vague or precise risk estimations as a function of what best serves the group's collective interests. This study extends the notion and further investigates whether evaluation apprehension contributes to the selection of the risk expressions. We hypothesize that group size and public feedback can engender apprehension and affect the learning of risk communication. Experiment 1 reproduced Erev et al.'s (1991) results and in addition showed that forecasters in small groups learned the optimal mode faster than those in larger groups. Experiment 2 contrasted social versus personal feedback and showed learning was faster in the personal feedback condition.