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The entrenchment effect: Why people persist with less-preferred behaviors

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Why do people get stuck in less-preferred tasks? On Amir uncovers the cause and provides insights for behavior change.

Image courtesy of interviewee. December 11, 2023

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This video video discusses the psychological concept of "entrenchment," which is the tendency for individuals to become stuck in less productive behaviors or tasks, making it harder to switch to more efficient alternatives. It illustrates this with examples, such as being too comfortable in front of the TV to get up for a drink, or starting an email on a mobile phone and refusing to switch to a computer for efficiency.

The author explains that this behavior can be attributed to cognitive costs associated with switching tasks. People often perceive the cost of switching as greater than the actual benefits of doing so, which can lead to sticking with an annoying task even when better options are available.

The paper presents experiments where participants are given both annoying and enjoyable tasks. Observations show that as participants spend more time on the annoying task, they become less likely to switch to the enjoyable one. The author suggests that this entrenchment can be mitigated by making the other tasks more accessible or alternating between tasks, which reduces the perceived cost of switching.

In conclusion, the discussion emphasizes that poor decisions may not always stem from a lack of self-control, but rather from cognitive processes that influence perceived costs and benefits. Understanding these mechanisms can help design environments that better facilitate task switching and improve decision-making outcomes for individuals.

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I dunno if you ever had the experience of, you know, you,

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you sit in front of the TV and you're really thirsty

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and you can see the fridge kind of on the corner

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of your eye, and as you sit there, you get thirsty

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and thirsty, but you can't bring yourself to actually get up

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because you're already sitting in front of the tv.

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That's an example of entrenchment, right?

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It's the idea that, that you kind of, you dig deeper

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and deeper kind of in a, in a less than positive hole.

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And the deeper you dig, the harder it is to get out of it.

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So there, you know, there could be like any real behavior in

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the world, there could be several reasons.

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Um, we focus in this paper on,

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on cognitive reasons, and that is,

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and we, we specifically, you know,

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that this wasn't a great example of what we do in the paper,

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because in the paper we do kind of, we discuss tasks

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that you're supposed to complete.

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And sitting in front of the TV is not exactly

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that, that kind of task.

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But you can imagine yourself, starting to respond

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to an email you received over the phone

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as you walk in towards your office.

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Um, and it's pretty difficult to type on the phone

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and you enter your office, now you're in front

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of your computer and it's so easy to say, you know what,

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in the three sentences I started on the phone,

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I can recreate on a computer and just finish the email.

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Much, much easier.

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But because you started, you're less likely to do it.

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And the reason, the reason we think that happens is that

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the task of typing on the phone, makes a certain kind

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of information set accessible in your brain.

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And switching tasks requires switching that information set.

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And that perceives to be costly is perceived to be costly,

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even though that cost is,

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is sometimes minuscule compared to the benefit.

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But that that mere cost of switching task set could,

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could prevent you from doing the, the more efficient,

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going onto the more efficient path.

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So we, what we don't do is we don't do

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what a computer would do is kind of the,

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the easy cost benefit analysis.

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Just the mere fact that there is some cost prevents us from

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undertaking the better path.

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So in this kind of generally, the, the type

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of methodology we have is we have somebody perform a,

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relatively annoying task.

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And I can't, I think, I can't take credit

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for inventing the most annoying task.

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My, my co-author did that, but,

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but I, I was the one who got the hate mail afterwards from,

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from participants.

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Uh, I, I can, you know, my favorite was,

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I bet you tortured small animals as a kid.

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You know, luckily I don't take that to heart

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and I did not torture small animals as a kid.

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Um, but basically we have people

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do something that's rather annoying.

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I'll give you an example. Um, we, we scanned some document

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and we, and we portray it to participants sideways.

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So you kind of, it's 90 degree rotated, so you have to,

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it's pretty annoying to read.

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And, and we asked them, we asked them to transcribe it,

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and that that's pretty annoying.

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And before they started, we showed them this

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among several other tasks, some of which are really fun,

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like playing a boggle game or, or,

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or rating jokes or whatever.

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And at some point we, we allow them the option to switch

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to the more preferred task

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and kind of still get paid for the session in the same way.

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And you'd expect everyone to switch.

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Like everyone should switch.

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And people who've started, not all of them switch,

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and the more time they spent on their annoying task,

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the less likely they are to switch.

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That's the entrenchment for you.

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And you also ask kind of what can we do about it, right?

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So there's several ways we could,

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we could basically overcome this.

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One is we could explicitly say,

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Hey, you know, look, this is crazy.

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You know, the other thing is, is

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another one is if this is in fact a task set

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switching cost, then if we, alternate

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between tasks initially so that you have in your,

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in your active setting in your brain, the other sets,

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then switching isn't as costly.

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And that's what we find in some of the studies as well is

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that once you have alternating tasks,

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you don't see this entrenchment happening.

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So what we specifically mean is that

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because that other information is already active changing

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to it isn't costly

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or isn't perceived as costly, it's not even, you know,

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it doesn't have to actually be a real cause it's enough

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that it's perceived to be costly and it,

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and if it already existed, it's perceived to be less costly

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and so, or, or not perceived to be not costly.

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There are many instances where people seem to, to operate

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or behave in ways that we think

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are surprisingly poor judgment or surprisingly poor choices.

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Sometimes we, we think of it as, as, poor self-control

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and, and

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and mapping the, the reasons, the underlying processes

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that lead to that shows us a,

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that it's not actually necessarily self-control in the

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classic way people think about it.

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And it's not necessarily, some

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flawed cost benefit analysis.

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It's more that in these cases people don't actually do the

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cost benefit analysis.

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So, so there enough, there's a,

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there's a small cost it prevent people

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from behaving properly.

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And I'll give you an example one.

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So we ask people whether in the past week they've, they've,

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they've experienced cases like this and,

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and a majority tell us they have.

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And so we ask them what,

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and one of them would be, would be a person

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that walks into the grocery store thinking

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they'll only buy a few items.

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And so they don't actually take a, a,

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a cart or, or a basket.

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And by the time they,

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they start walking in the grocery store, they remember that,

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you know, I, I kind of needed to buy more, more stuff.

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And so, but going back to taking a cart

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or the basket seems like it's, it's really costly.

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So they'll, they'll juggle, they'll, they'll struggle,

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they'll do crazy things or maybe not buy enough just

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because they haven't exerted this cost.

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So, so the planner, the store owner knowing

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that could place baskets in strategic locations

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that make it very easy to pick up, I don't have

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to actually go back and,

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and that that really helps the customers do

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what, what is best for them.

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So we can design the environment to be such, in such a way

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that understanding this kind of process,

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we can overcome issues like that

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and have people do things that are better for them.

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Conclusion, we, we, we've talked a little bit about that,

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but you know, we, we've studied several ways.

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There's other papers that compliment this where people think

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that that poor behavior on the, on the on part of, of,

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individuals in society is driven really by

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poor self-control, right?

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And you think that, if we train people, we tell them

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to have more self-control, we'll have a better society.

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And, and the answer is more complicated than that

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because there are different processes that seem

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to us like self-control might be at

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fault, but, but it's really not.

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And if you, if you can hit the nail on the head

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and not kind of bunch it all up as, as self-control,

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you could help people improve their lives.

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So that's, you know, that's part of that.

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And, and specifically identifying this cognitive mechanism

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points to particular ways in which we can

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help people overcome that.

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So that to me is where is where we can leap from this

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to other research to see what,

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what influences the ease of, of task switching?

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What, what influences the, the, the perceived ease

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or the perceived cost of, of task switching?

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Um, and what can we do pe so people can prepare

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and be better equipped to deal with these kind

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of situations?

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