Factors That Help or Hinder Decision-Making under Stress - Assignment Example

Decision Making Under Stress Name Name of Institution INTRODUCTION The medical dictionary defines stress as an organism’s total response to environmental demands and pressures. In humans, stress is caused by interactions among persons and the environment that are perceived to threaten their well-being, as their magnitude is beyond the persons’ involved coping capacity. Although human beings are endowed with the capacity to analyse situations logically through an elaborate cognitive process, while under stress or threat, the more primitive survival responses naturally take charge as a survival mechanism. When faced with a threatening or stressful situation the logical thinking part of the brain shuts down, ranking good decisions lower, as the mind’s first priority is survival. This mechanism has an ultimate effect in decision making, which could either help or hinder good decision making. How people react to stressful situations or pressure is largely dependent on their personality. It is common to deal with stressors on daily basis; however continued exposure to stressful situations may have a lasting impact on a person. Stress has been proven to disrupt cognitive processes and thus affecting the performance of a task under pressure. Having to make a decision within a limited timespan has often lead to disastrous consequences. One of the highly publicised cases being the Vincennes tragedy in which the US missile cruiser mistakenly shot down Iranian Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf. This event took all of a remarkable seven minutes, a relatively short time to analyse and make the crucial decision. It’s this catastrophe that lead to the establishment of the Tactical Decision Making under Stress (TADMUS), a program that has had significant achievements in this field today. (Collyer & Malecki, 1998) The effects of stress/pressure could either be beneficial or detrimental to the decision making process and ultimately the decision reached. This paper will look into the factors that help and hinder the process of decision making under stress, and give a conclusion on the same. Factors That Help or Hinder Decision Making Under Stress Stress can hinder good decision making in that: Performing under pressure makes persons more self-conscious disrupting their attention from the task at hand. The efficiency of the working memory system that allows people to juggle information on the spot has been proven to be reduced by stress, according to recent study. (Weiten, Dunn, & Hammer, 2012) Other adverse effects of stress are psychological for instance pounding of heart and sweating, emotional effects including anxiety and confusion as well as cognitive effects e.g. loss of focus and attention deficit. (Hancock & Szalma, 1988) Majority of studies have concentrated on the negative effects of stress, however, studies have shown that stress could have positive impacts such as: Positive emotions do not vanish in times of severe stress, rather these emotions in the aftermath of a crisis buffer resilient people against depression and fuel thriving. These positive emotions appear to play a key role in helping people bounce back from negative emotions associated with stress (Weiten, Dunn, & Hammer, 2012, p. 82) Stress has also proven to be valuable under certain circumstances for instance in sporting activities and making speeches. The stress response during such activities increases alertness strengthens muscles and sight as well as reducing reaction time. The response mobilizes all the body resources to achieve, which is survival mechanism. (Avelino & Sanchez, 1996, p. 65) Stress also adds zest to life, offering a challenge many people need to live a fulfilling and exciting life. (Avelino & Sanchez, 1996) Owing to the TADMUS program, the sphere of Decision making under stress has been accorded the necessary attention and support, resulting in massive research and significant accomplishments to this end. High-profile naval incidences e.g the Vincennes tragedy have been analysed in detail and there is adequate data and the existence of remarkable synergy between scientists and the operational navy. (Collyer & Malecki, 1998) This has made it possible to underscore the positive and negative stress factors in decision making. It is structured to counter the negative effects of stress in decision making, as studies have overwhelmingly proved that making decisions under duress is more liable to affect the process of decision making negatively than positively. To start with, stress has been shown to reduce creativity. Under pressure, one sees fewer alternatives and the mind is unable to process more solutions that could aid in problem solving. Stress impairs concentration. The mind is very sensitive to the external distractions, and stress is a form of distraction disrupting the internal environment. Such a ‘noisy’ internal environment is hardly conducive for concentration needed to reach sound judgement/decision. Having to make a decision under pressure is more reactive than proactive. Logical thinking and sagacity of judgement deteriorates with stress, making a person lose the bigger picture in an effort to save the critical moment currently faced. This kind of thinking is usually very subjective and could result in a disastrous effect in the long term. While this Fight/flight response is helpful for safety purposes, it is inappropriate for complex tasks and making of difficult decisions. In panic situations, people may adhere to incorrect coping strategies, which may result in greater damage caused by the threat itself. (Hancock & Szalma, 1988, p. 69). Thus, we can conclude that under pressure/threat, there’s tunnel-vision caused by external factors (the threat/stress). These events automatically draw a person’s attention resulting in rigid thinking, little control over attention and primitive behavioural patterns that may be inappropriate. (Hancock & Szalma, 1988) However, there are stress factors that aid in decision making, resulting in favourable impact. For instance, stress reduces the time a person takes to react. In a panic situation, all resources are channelled towards averting the pending danger/threat/stressor, thus reducing the time that would normally be used to react. Stress under certain under certain circumstances increases a person’s alertness. One is much more aware of their immediate environment when faced with a stressful situation and there are fewer chances of distraction from the task at hand during such occasions. It is for this reason perhaps that most students are able to revise more before an examination or to write up an assignment just before the deadline. In the case of naval command and other such high profile difficult decisions to be made, timeliness is a crucial factor, and this could mean seconds to a few minutes to make that crucial decision. Considering the factors raised on the positive and negative effects of stress in decision making, it is clear that there is need for more research and training on tactical decision making under stress. The TADMUS program has documented a lot of progress towards this effort and lessons can be drawn from the program, for application elsewhere. Some of the strategies and interventions that were employed in the program include: Mental model training Teamwork behaviour training Co-ordination and adaptability training Guided practices Training novice decision-makers to employ strategies used by expert decision-makers in skills such as pattern recognition and schema-based decision making. (Collyer & Malecki, 1998) This kind of innovative training coupled with decision support intervention has documented huge success and accomplishment in terms of both timeliness and quality of tactical decision making. There’s got to be solid and sound interventions in countering the negative effects of stress in decision making, as stressors are inevitable in the life of any decision maker. It is important that decisions made under stress are as sound and sagacious as possible, irrespective of the circumstances they were reached at. As outlined in the TADMUS program, the interventions could fall into three categories (Collyer & Malecki, 1998): 1. Increasing overall skill levels-performance of highly skilled and competent people is bound to be less likely to be affected by the negative effects of stress/pressure. The human mind is highly complex and is able to master and process complex activities, with proper and intense training, it is possible to perform extremely complex activities with ease. A case in point is a surgeon, who after intense training is capable of performing complex surgical operations seemingly with ease and with the precision and quick thinking that such critical situations call for. An ‘expert’ decision-maker will find it easier to make timely and quality decisions under duress as compared to a novice decision maker. 2. Exposing trainees to stress during training- this is an argument based on the hypothesis that exposure to stress during training can make trainees resilient and resistant to the impact of stress in actual task performance. This notion can be proven through the rigorous and strenuous training that military personnel have to undergo during their training. This prepares them for actual combat-situations in real life and sharpens their skills right from the start. Being accustomed to stress/pressure is therefore essential in ensuring better coping mechanism and tactful decision making when faced with a real stress situation. Essentially, anticipating, planning and rehearsing those actions required under stress can make those actions more automatic when stressful situations arise. (Paris, Salas, & Cannon-bowers, 1999) 3. Targeting skills that are particularly vulnerable: some skills are more often than not faced with stress situations than others. In any field, it is important to identify these skills and operational environments, and concentrate more on equipping those involved in the targeted training. It is noteworthy that social support can mitigate some of the effects of stress, through shared decision-making, group affiliations, corporate identity, group counselling etc. (Kahn & Cooper, 1993) CONCLUSION Decision making is a complex cognitive activity that is sensitive to situational and environmental conditions. Man is not an optimal decision maker especially when making intuitive decisions, and stress is one of the factors that decreases the optimality of intuitive decision making. Psychological stress enhances the utilization of suboptimal cognitive processes and the appearance of cognitive errors and biases. (Zakay, 1993) Possible alternatives and dimensions considered are significantly reduced under pressure as compared to normal circumstances. Time is one of the environmental factors that enhances psychological stress. This is especially common in situations requiring high level complex decisions to be made for instance, nuclear plants’ control rooms, medicine and aviation. Such stress has a negative impact on decision making effectiveness, as highlighted in this paper. It may lead to utilization of simple non-linear decision strategies resulting in suboptimal decisions. (Zakay, 1993) Further reading suggests that while training has been seen to improve decision-making in unlimited time, it does not improve the effectiveness of decision making in limited time pressure. In an attempt to vouch for an explanatory mechanism of time perception, Zakay (1993) suggests that the perception of time is dependent on amount of information stored and retrieved from the memory and the complexity of events during retrieval. It’s my opinion that while there are many contradicting assertions on the positive and negative stress factors in decision making, it is undeniable that stress is a solid factor that affects the decision-making process and outcome. How we react to a situation under pressure is largely spontaneous and quite unpredictable. However, anticipating stress and being prepared for its eventuality does aid in quality and effectiveness of decision making under stress. Perhaps the most far reaching and remarkable decisions that have changed the world as we know it today were not made within the luxury of unlimited time and favourable environment. Bibliography Avelino, S. E., & Sanchez, C. A. (1996). Personality Development and Human Relations. Quezon: Rex Book store,Inc. Collyer, S. C., & Malecki, G. S. (1998). Tactical Decision making under stress:History and overview. (J. Cannon-Bowers, & E.Salas, Eds.) Making Decision under stress, 3-14. Hancock, P. A., & Szalma, J. L. (Eds.). (1988). Performance under Stress. Hampshire: Ashgate. Kahn, H., & Cooper, C. L. (1993). Stress in the Dealing room:High Performers under Pressure. London: Routledge. Paris, C. R., Salas, E., & Cannon-bowers, J. A. (1999). Human Performance in Multi-Operator Systems. (P. A. Hancock, Ed.) Human Perception and Ergonomics:Perceptual and Cognitive Principles, 329-376. Weiten, W., Dunn, D. S., & Hammer, E. Y. (2012). Psychology Applied to Modern life:Adjustment in the 21st Century (Tenth ed.). (J.-D. Hague, Ed.) Belmont: Wadsworth. Zakay, D. (1993). Time Pressure and Stress in Human Judgement and Decision Making. (A.J.Maule, & O.Svenson, Eds.) New York: Plenum Press. Read More