A new study published in Psychological Science introduces the concept of “doubling-back aversion,” referring to the reluctance to pursue a more efficient path toward a goal when that path involves undoing progress already made. Across four experiments involving more than 2,500 participants, it was found that people often reject time-saving options if they involve “starting over,” even when the payoff is clear.

The research reveals that people’s aversion to doubling back isn’t about the objective difficulty of the task, but about how they construe their progress. Undoing prior work feels wasteful and discouraging, even if continuing forward is objectively less efficient. 

I recently spoke with the authors of the study: Kristine Cho, a PhD student, and Dr. Clayton Critcher, professor at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. We discussed what inspired this research, what it reveals about how we interpret effort and how to overcome the mental trap of equating “undoing” with “failure.” Here’s a summary of our conversation.

Could you briefly explain what doubling-back aversion means in everyday terms, especially for people who might recognize this feeling?

When pursuing a goal, whether it’s getting a promotion or finishing a report, there are often many possible paths available to reaching that goal. Some of these paths may be less efficient than others. 

For instance, someone could either continue writing a difficult draft that they’re stuck on, or take the easier route by deleting the draft and starting fresh. Doubling-back aversion refers to the common tendency to resist means that require undoing or discarding prior work and, in the process, increasing the proportion of the task that remains to be completed. 

In other words, people are reluctant to “double back”. This reluctance can make people less efficient, since avoiding doubling back can slow progress toward their goal.

What inspired you to explore the concept of doubling-back aversion, and what were the key methods and findings of your research?

The idea started with a simple thought experiment: Imagine leaving your house, turning left, and realizing moments later you should’ve gone right instead. Even when turning around, going past your house, and taking the better path would still be faster, we thought that most people would rather keep going than retrace their steps past the starting point. 

This made us wonder, in general, do people avoid doubling back when it would help them reach their goals more efficiently? And if so, why? 

To explore this, we ran several experiments. Some involved tasks like thinking of words starting with certain letters, whereas another used a virtual-reality environment where participants literally had to decide whether to turn and go all the way back to the starting point to take the shorter route to a destination. 

In all of these studies, we found that when a choice was framed as requiring doubling back (deleting prior work and starting over on the entirety of a task), people were much less likely to take the more efficient route.

What practical advice would you offer to someone who tends to avoid taking a better path because it means undoing previous efforts?

It can help to change how you think about waste. When you double back, it can feel like throwing away past efforts, but refusing to change course can actually waste more time and energy in the long run. Instead of focusing on what efforts have already been spent, people should focus on what’s still ahead.

How does doubling-back aversion differ from other decision making biases like the sunk cost fallacy?

Both ideas relate to people’s tendencies to stick with worse courses of action, but they apply to different decisions. The sunk-cost fallacy is often about whether to abandon a goal altogether after investing time or money — for example, continuing to fund a failing project because someone has already invested so much in it. 

In contrast, doubling-back aversion is about how people pursue a goal they will certainly continue to pursue; the question is simply how. It’s the resistance to changing methods, even if switching would clearly save one time. 

In other words, with doubling-back aversion, someone still plans to reach the same endpoint, but they just take the slower, less efficient path because they don’t want to undo progress.

What suggestions do you have for helping people overcome doubling-back aversion in making decisions or pursuing goals?

The key is to reframe how you interpret effort and progress. People avoid doubling back because they feel it makes past efforts meaningless, but the truth is that clinging to the less efficient path guarantees that more effort will be wasted in the future. 

Focusing on the future, on how to move forward most effectively from the present, can help someone choose the more efficient path. It’s important to remember that taking one step back is often the quickest way to move many steps forward. 

Do you often overthink your past mistakes? Take this science-backed test and find out if you have a tendency to ruminate: Mistake Rumination Scale