FPSYC3400: Decision-Making & Critical Incident Management

Lecture 10

Examples of Critical Incidents

•Armed intruders

•Hostage taking

•Barricaded persons

•Bomb threats & suspicious packages

•Being operated on the wrong side/site

•Suicide or murder of a co-worker

•Workplace violence

•Natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes, floods, tornados)

•Major disasters (e.g., plane crash; train derailments; oil spills; nuclear; fire)

•Invasion & War

•Murder of Sammy Yatim (2013)

•Unmarked Graves of Indigenous Peoples, Residential Schools

•Nova Scotia Mass Casualty event (2020)

•Toronto Van attack (2018)

•G20 Summit, Toronto (2010)

Critical Incident Management (CIM) Cycle

1. preparing for critical incidents

2. managing critical incidents

3. restoring public confidence

Traditional Decision Making (TDM) is related to which theory?

Classical Decision Theory

According to the Classical Decision Theory what characteristic do decision makers have?

• Are objective

• Have complete information

• Consider all possible alternatives & their consequences

• Select the optimal solution

Traditional Decision Making (TDM) Criticisms

• rarely possible to consider all alternatives

• impractical to consider all consequences

• estimation process costs time & effort

  • does not allow for an optimal or extensive exhuastive comprehensive search

• information is rarely complete and/or accurate

• individual lack mental capacity to process all the information

What is Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) concerned with?

with how individuals and teams use their experience to assess, make meaningful decisions and take action in dynamic, uncertain, and time-pressured situations

With regard to Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) blank is an important variable to consider

experience

Features of Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM)

• Ill-defined goals & ill-structured task

• Uncertainty, ambiguity, & missing data

• Shifting & competing gals

• Dynamic & continually changing conditions

• Action-feedback loops (real-time reactions to changed conditions)

• Time stress

• High stakes

• Multiple players

• Organizational goals & norms

• Experienced decision-makers

Essential Characteristics of Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM)

1. proficient decision makers

   1. relevant experience and knowledge to rely on their experiences

2. process orientation

   1. does not making an attempt to predict which options will be implemented but tries to describe the cognitive processes of proficient decision makers

3. situation-action matching decisions rules

   1. matching isn’t a generic label; for decisions with the basic structure because it is appropriate for the situation, which means that any options are evaluated one at a time

   2. when presented with several options, no by comparing them against each other

   3. matching relies on pattern matching and informal reasoning rather than anayliztial

4. context-bound informal modelling

   1. Driven by experience and knowledge

   2. exert knowledge is dominant and contact specific and decision makers asense tive smeantive indicating that individuals work as well as the suyantiv contexct

   3. the structure of language

5. empirical-based prescription

   1. actions are baed on experience; options that are optimal in some formal sense but when they cannot be implemented they are considered worthless

Hydra is blank based training?

simulation

Hydra: Simulation-Based Training enables?

the monitoring of group dynamics, real-time leadership, and naturalistic decision-making in critical incidents

Hydra: Simulation-Based Training - Benefits 

• Scenarios are immersive & often replicate real-life conditions

• Allow the person to gain experience in a safe learning environment

• Participants get experience working as a team in high-pressure environments

• Allows for formative assessments of knowledge and decision-making skills of participants

Which decision-making is related to these features?

Traditional

Which decision-making is related to these features?

Naturalistic 

Which decision making cannot use all the information that is available all of the time?

Heuristics & Decision-Making

Heuristics & Decision-Making can lead to blank in decision making

biases 

When is Recognition-Primed Decision-Making (RPD) model used?

complex and uncertain situations

Recognition-Primed Decision-Making (RPD) 2 processes

• situation assessment

• evaluation using mental simulation 

Slide 16

Done

Key Features of Recognition-Primed Decision-Making (RPD)

1. Blend of intuition (pattern recognition) and analysis (mental simulation)

• NOT just intuition

2. First option is usually workable

• NOT random generation

3. Satisficing

• NOT optimizing

4. Evaluation through mental simulation

• NOT Rational Choice

5. Focus on elaborating and improving options

• NOT choosing between options

6. Focus on situation awareness

• NOT courses of action

7. Decision maker primed to act

• NOT waiting to complete the analysis

What example in lecture is used? 

“A hungry donkey stands between two identical hay piles. The donkey always chooses whichever hay is closest to him. Both piles are exactly the same distance apart, one on his right, one on his left, and they are identical in every way. Which pile of hay will the donkey choose to eat?

Why is Critical Incident & Decision-Making research important?

• There is a need to incorporate some form of judgement/decision-making theory into existing training curriculums

  • Knowing where uncertainty comes from allows more focused advice and recommendations to improve training

• Without prior knowledge, training, or frequent exposure, the response is generally one of stress, confusion, frustration, and fear

Result à mistakes!

How do we make decisions?

1. brain is capable of processing only for a limited of time

   1. 1-9 pieces

   2. deciding which information is important

2. people spontaneously try to make sense of complex information

3. memory operates in a away that predisposes us to account for information in terms of stories or narratives

blank plays a central role in investigators decision-making

narratives

When does endogenous uncertainty exist?

when situational information is:

• sparse

• overwhelming

• contradictory

• novel

Which Critical Incident feature is harder to manage?

endogenous

Where do exogenous uncertainties derive from?

confusion over the expectation of one’s own and other behaviours

• comrpomise the effectiveness with which teams plan and execute decisions and action

blank can reduce confidence and self efficacy and cause problems for dynamic decision making

poor role understanding

Exogenous uncertainty can derail teamwork by?

affecting team cohesion and reducing team members willingness to share/seek information with others

Strength of Traditional Decision Making

has a repertoire of sophisticated research designs and methods of quantifying decision outcomes

• allow for strictly controlled studies of isolated events in the investigative decision making process

Naturalistic Decision Making favours?

studies of group processes and teamwork which can provide insight to the concept such as team situation awareness shared, problem assessment and them mind and shared mental models

What example was used in lecture with regard to NDM?

firefighters

What is more important expert performance or precision knowledge?

expert performance

What example in the lecture with regard to field studies?

Professor Scott - University of Liverpool

• football - hoolignanism

• how fans interacted with each other

Critical Decision Making Interview - Single Incident

provides a method of collecting in retrospect insight into different decision makers, decision making processes

• very specific

• allows researchers to identify critical decision points throughout he deciiuons making prcss in that individent

• providece indiations of cues an dpatterns that maybe that experts perceve those kind of rule of thunb theuve devised for making decisons these spcifici situtations

Limits of Field Studies, Simulations & Laboratory Techniques

• can’t introduce or interpose the real level or emotional or risk related factors inherent in police decision making

• can’t prepare officers the routine or unanticipated conditions that may encounter

• Field studies: can’t go in the middle of incident and try and manage the incident

blank act has a halfway point between laboratory and field based approaches in order to maximize the strengths of both methods and minimize limitations

simulation based technologies

Why are simulation based technologies useful?

for synthesizing contrasting traditional and naturalistic decision making approaches because it allows both observation and testing of both these theories at the same time.

Heuristics should be viewed as?

adaptive tools that help us navigate in complex environments and make quick and fairly accurate judgements based on limited information

How can error occur using availability heuristic?

if an event is available because of something other than actual frequency

• maybe a recent similar event, recent strong associated emotional experiences to that event

blank is a naturalistic decision making

Recognition-Primed Decision-Making (RPD)

Recognition-Primed Decision-Making (RPD) is based on?

cognitive processes of situation assessment, which is about how decision makers make sense of situations guide action as well as mental simulation evaluation

RPD: Fundamental Scenarios

varying degrees of operator recognition can simplify large proportions of decision processes

• Level 1: Simple Match

• Level 2: Diagnose the Situation

• Level 3: Evaluate Course of Action

What happens in RPD Model: Orient, when Expectancies are violated?

maybe you identified the situation and now we move to decide

blank occurs between the option generation and option evaluation stages of decision making and involves an active engaged effort to decidee

decision inertia

When are decision maker most likely to become inert?

faced with decisions that are least-worst decisions

• those in which all choices offer a potentially negative outcome and are high risk

What separated decision inertia in a negative outcome for more general decision or avoidance which can be positive?

if events hasty o reckless decisions; despite the individuals motivation or act they struggle to make a choice either cognitively or behaviourally