This is a three-part assignment about escalation of commitment.

1. Describe an escalation situation that you have faced or have personal experience with.

Answer: One day, I went to a bakery. I was in line and the lady in front of me was trying to get some
pastries for her daughter, but the women’s English wasn’t too good, and the worker couldn’t
understand what she was trying to order. She was on the phone with her daughter at the time, so I
asked her “if you’d like I could talk to your daughter and see what pastries she wants and I can tell
the worker for you.” She started to go off on me, saying I should mind my own business. I told her all
I wanted to do was help her, but she didn’t like that.

2. The articles lists 4 general categories of factors influencing escalation. List 3 (or more) factors that
may have been prominent in this escalation situation. Be sure to put a factor in more than one
category.

Answer: 
Project's Objective Features: I didn’t think I should persist with helping her as she wasn’t very kind in
the way she responded to me. Ultimately, I realized that I could just cut my losses early so I longer
engaged with her. I quickly withdrew from the conversation.

Psychological: Since, I experienced negative feedback (i.e., responses) from the lady, I didn’t persist
with helping her.

Social: I believe I was able to realize that continuing the conversation wasn’t going to yield different
results – so, I really needed to end the conversation.

3: Offer one solution to the escalation situation.

Answer: I believe withdrawing from the conversation and telling her “I was only trying to help; I no
longer want to continue conversing with you” was the right course of actions. As she clearly didn’t
want my help and I didn’t want to continue to offer my help.