Cho, K. Y., & Critcher, C. R. (2025).
Psychological Science, 36(5), 332-349.
Abstract
Four studies (N = 2,524 U.S.-based adults recruited from the University of California, Berkeley, or Amazon Mechanical Turk) provide support for doubling-back aversion, a reluctance to pursue more efficient means to a goal when they entail undoing progress already made. These effects emerged in diverse contexts, both as participants physically navigated a virtual-reality world and as they completed different performance tasks. Doubling back was decomposed into two components: the deletion of progress already made and the addition to the proportion of a task that was left to complete. Each contributed independently to doubling-back aversion. These effects were robustly explained by shifts in subjective construals of both one’s past and future efforts that would result from doubling back, not by changes in perceptions of the relative length of different routes to an end state. Participants’ aversion to feeling their past efforts were a waste encouraged them to pursue less efficient means. We end by discussing how doubling-back aversion is distinct from established phenomena (e.g., the sunk-cost fallacy).
Here are some thoughts:
This research is important to psychologists because it identifies a new bias—doubling-back aversion, the tendency to avoid more efficient strategies if they require undoing prior progress. Unlike the sunk cost fallacy, which involves continuing with a failing course of action to justify prior investments, doubling-back aversion leads people to reject better options simply because they involve retracing steps—even when the original path is not failing. It expands understanding of goal pursuit by showing that subjective interpretations of effort, progress, and perceived waste, not just past investment, drive decisions. These findings have important implications for behavior change, therapy, education, and challenge rational-choice models by revealing emotional barriers to optimal decisions.
Here is a clinical example:
A client has spent months working on developing assertiveness skills and boundary-setting to improve their interpersonal relationships. While these skills have helped somewhat, the client still experiences frequent emotional outbursts, difficulty calming down, and lingering shame after conflicts. The therapist recognizes that the core issue may be the client’s inability to regulate intense emotions in the moment and suggests shifting the focus to foundational emotion-regulation strategies.
The client hesitates and says:
“We already moved past that—I thought I was done with that kind of work. Going back feels like I'm not making progress.”
Doubling-Back Aversion in Action:
- The client resists returning to earlier-stage work (emotion regulation) even though it’s crucial for addressing persistent symptoms.
- They perceive it as undoing progress, not as a step forward.
- This aversion delays therapeutic gains, even though the new focus is likely more effective.
