Performance evaluation in a dynamic context: A laboratory study of the impact of a prior commitment to the ratee.

Proposed that raters who are provided with negative performance data on a previously promoted employee will subsequently evaluate the employee more positively if they, rather than their predecessors, made the earlier promotion decision. 298 business majors participated. The experimental group made a promotion decision by choosing among 3 candidates, whereas the control group was told that the decision had been made by someone else. Both groups evaluated the promoted employee's performance after reviewing 2 yrs of data. The hypothesized escalation of commitment effect was observed in that the experimental group consistently evaluated the employee more favorably, provided larger rewards, and made more optimistic projections of future performance than did the control group. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)