Decision Making (Naturalistic), Psychology of

Naturalistic decision making (NDM) is the process by which people use their experience to make decisions in complex real-world environments. These environments often involve high levels of risk and time pressure, change dynamically, and have significant consequences for both the decision maker and others, e.g., firefighting, aviation, medicine, and military command. The decision maker's domain knowledge plays a key role in the decision process; it is the basis for recognizing situations that require decisions, in determining what information is relevant, and in deciding on an appropriate course of action. NDM research typically is done in field settings because it is concerned with decisions that are embedded in and contribute to ongoing tasks. A major development in the NDM movement is the Recognition Primed Decision (RPD) model (Klein 1998). This model involves recognition of cue patterns that leads to retrieval of a response option. Serial evaluation of single options is typical; the first option that satisfies the decision maker's goals and situational constraints is chosen. An RPD approach is useful when the decision maker has substantial domain experience, when decision time is constrained, and when conditions are changing dynamically.