Factors affecting entrapment in waiting situations: The Rosencrantz and Guildenstern effect.

Seventy-two undergraduates took part in an experimental study of entrapment, in which the passage of time could be viewed either as an investment (increasing the likelihood of goal attainment) or as an expense. Subjects were . given an opportunity to win a large sum of money (the jackpot), which decreased in value over time. In order to win the jackpot, a series of crossword puzzle words had to be solved, some of which were so difficult that the use of a necessary, scarce resource (a crossword dictionary) was required. And in order to obtain the use of this resource, subjects had to wait "in line" until it became available—which it never did. Three variables were varied in a 2X2X2 design: rate of decrement of the jackpot, availability of a chart providing continuous information about this decrement, and information concerning subjects' (presumed) position in line for the dictionary. Entrapment in this waiting conflict was found to be high overall, and was further heightened when (a) the size of the jackpot decreased slowly rather than rapidly, (b) when no payoff chart was made available, and (c) when subjects were told they were first rather than third in line for the dictionary. We've traveled too far, and our momentum has taken over; we move idly towards eternity, without possibility of reprieve or hope of explanation. —Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead Social psychologists such as Deutsch (1973), Schilling (1960), and others have long been interested in the circumstances underlying entrapment in a variety of conflict situations. One type of conflict in which entrapment commonly occurs, for example, is an auction, in which bidding typically escalates at increasing cost to the participants. In the presence of others with whom they are competing for some desirable object or resource, bidders tend to increase the magnitude of their offers, often above and beyond the objective value of the object in question. Indeed, Shubik (1971) has described an auction game in which entrapment is so intense that a dollar bill may be auctioned off for considerably more than the one dollar at stake! Gambling, similarly, can be interpreted as a conflict situation in which entrapment is likely to occur—particu larly when the gambler wishes to recoup losses he has already incurred and therefore decides to roll the dice "just one more time,"