Commitment and Consistency Bias

Cialdini's principle that once people make a commitment (especially publicly), they experience strong internal pressure to behave consistently with that commitment—even when new evidence suggests changing course. The mechanism: cognitive dissonance between 'I committed to X' and 'X may be wrong' is resolved by doubling down on X rather than acknowledging the error. A CEO who publicly commits to a strategy continues investing despite deteriorating evidence. A voter who commits to a candidate rationalizes increasingly problematic behavior. The bias is amplified by: public commitment (others saw you commit), effort (you've invested heavily), and identity ('I'm the kind of person who...').

When to use it

When sunk costs and public commitments are preventing course correction; when escalation of commitment is producing worse outcomes with each cycle; when organizational culture punishes changing course more than staying wrong; when personal identity attachment to positions prevents honest evidence evaluation.

How it can help

Build in explicit decision review points BEFORE commitment escalates. The practices: (1) Separate the initial commitment from continued commitment—'we decided to do X' doesn't mean 'we must continue doing X.' (2) Pre-commit to reassessment criteria: 'if we don't see Y by date Z, we revisit.' (3) Normalize course-correction as strength, not weakness. (4) For personal decisions: notice when you're defending a position more because you've committed to it than because the evidence supports it. The diagnostic: 'would I make this same choice today, with today's information, if I hadn't already committed?'