ABSTRACT
An individual's behavior frequently affects the course of events. A person might sell his house, and at some point in the transaction, it may become impossible for him to reacquire the house at any price. A general in the Army may decide to concentrate his defensive forces at point A rather that at point B, and it might take days to reshift his forces should his opponent decide to attack at point B. A candidate for office may publically refer to some people as “Polacks,” and this information is spread by the news media so that potential voters become informed of the slur. In each of these cases an individual has behaved in a way that has significance in regard to subsequent events, and it would be difficult for the individual to deny the meaning fulness of his behavior or to change what he had done. These instances in which the cognition about one's own behavior is relatively resistant to change may be called behavioral commitments.
