Judgment and decision making under stress: an overview for emergency managers

This paper discusses human judgment and decision making under stress. The authors review selected recent literature across various disciplines and suggest a definition of stress within the context of decision making during the management of emergencies. They also discuss fieldwork by the Pittsburgh Research Laboratory, NIOSH, which explores traumatic incident stress, the relationship between previous training and performance under stressful conditions, and human behaviour in underground mine fires. The authors assert that stress is one of the factors that decision makers must contend with in most life-or-death situations. They suggest that a better understanding of individual judgment and decision making activities whilst under stress would yield a better understanding of how people reach the choices they make in emergencies. This enhanced understanding would be of enormous value to emergency managers, researchers and policymakers.

[1]  Kathleen M. Kowalski,et al.  The Effects Of Disaster On Workers: A Study Of Burnout In Investigators Of Serious Accidents And Fatalities In The U.S. Mining Industry , 1900 .

[2]  J. C. Flanagan.  Psychological Bulletin THE CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE , 2022 .

[3]  E. C. Poulton,et al.  Arousing environmental stresses can improve performance, whatever people say. , 1976 .

[4]  I. Altman,et al.  Handbook of environmental psychology , 1987 .

[5]  G. Keinan,et al.  Decision making under stress: Scanning of alternatives under physical threat , 1987 .

[6]  J. Gillis.  Effects of Life Stress and Dysphoria on Complex Judgments , 1993, Psychological reports.

[7]  E Pfeifer,et al.  Strategic thinking and stress. , 1993, Ergonomics.

[8]  Elliot E. Entin,et al.  Adaptation to Stress in Team Decision-Making and Coordination , 1993 .

[9]  R. Lazarus,et al.  Passion and reason : making sense of our emotions , 1994 .

[10]  Johanna Helena Kerstholt,et al.  The effect of time pressure on decision-making behaviour in a dynamic task environment , 1994 .

[11]  David A. Hofmann,et al.  High reliability process industries: Individual, micro, and macro organizational influences on safety performance , 1995 .

[12]  Kathleen Madland Kowalski.  A human component to consider in your emergency management plans: the critical incident stress factor , 1995 .

[13]  T Scharf,et al.  Linking Stress and Injury in the Farming Environment: A Secondary Analysis of Qualitative Data , 1996, Health education quarterly.

[14]  S. L. Sauter.  Psychosocial and organizational factors. , 1998 .

[15]  Tom Kontogiannis,et al.  Stress and team performance: principles and challenges for intelligent decision aids , 1999 .

[16]  K. R. Hammond.  Judgments Under Stress , 1999 .

[17]  Henry P. Cole,et al.  Toward a Typology of Dynamic and Hazardous Work Environments , 2001 .

[18]  Edward J. Waller.  Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology , 2004 .