Decision-Making Under Stress: Emerging Themes and Applications

Reviewing recent research and theory on "naturalistic decision making", this work evaluates the contribution to understanding emergency decision making in a range of situations. It presents a review of psychological theory, research and practice on decision making in stressful environments and emergency situations. The book focuses on experienced decision makers who deal with such risks, for example those in charge of flight decks, firegrounds, emergency control centres and warfare operations rooms. There is a growing demand for a better understanding of decision making in critical hazardous situations to improve selection, training and operational performance. This volume represents the collected papers from an international conference "Decision Making Under Stress: Emerging Themes and Applications" which was held in Aberdeen in September 1996.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction; Theoretical Perspectives on NDM: The current status of the naturalistic decision making framework; In search of naturalistic decisions; Stress and naturalistic decision making: strengthening the weak links; Merging paradigms: decision making, management and cognitive control. Decisions in Civil Emergencies: Critical incident management simulation; A framework for building and testing models of recorded team decision making; Decision making patterns in major fire-fighting and rescue operations; Psychological research and development in the London Fire Brigade; Design of the natural: an engineering process for NDM; Head-mounted video recording: a methodology for studying NDM. Military Command Decisions: On-line coping with uncertainty: beyond the reduce, quantify and plug heuristic; Improving critical thinking; Team adaptation and co-ordination training; Dynamic decision making in non-routine situations; Surrender at Perevolochna: a case study of perspective and action control in decision making under stress; Enhancing effective decision making by information management techniques; Military decision support. Decisions on the Flight deck: Military pilot performance - dynamic decision making in its extreme; Understanding expert aviator judgment; Decision making training for aircrew; Selection for stressful jobs: is the defence mechanism test the solution?; Pilot mental workload and situational awareness - psychological models of the pilot. Analysing Decision Making Under Stress: Strategies for adapting to time pressure; Emergency decision making - a wider decision framework?; Decision making in complex situations: cognitive and motivational limitations; Differentiation and consolidation theory; Analyzing team skills; Toward an understanding of stress on organizational social systems in complex, dynamic, environments; Appendices.

About the Author :
Rhona Flin is Professor of Applied Psychology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK; Eduardo Salas is Senior Research Psychologist and Head of the Training Technology Development Branch of the US Naval Air Warfare Centre Training Systems Division; Michael Strub is Chief of the US Army Research Laboratory London Research Office; Lynne Martin is at NASA Ames Research Center.

Review :
’This collection presents a state-of-the-art review of psychological theory, in research and practice, on decision making in high-pressure and emergency situations.’ Business Horizons, USA ’...some very practical information...exceedingly well-referenced.’ Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine