This chapter has discussed the psychological foundation to this thesis. The main goal of this thesis was to explore the concept of decision inertia; focussing on the psychology of doing nothing within extreme emergency incident environments. Research was conducted using a descriptive approach to problem-solving that
23 utilised NDM methods. Findings were derived from an emergent, ground-up approach to data analysis, rather than using top-down theoretical assumptions. It presents a detailed discussion on how motivations and goal orientations and the experience of uncertainty interact with choice implementation in multi-agency settings. An overview of the main goals and findings of each chapter will now be provided.
Chapter 2 provides an overview of the methodological approach to this thesis. It defines what ‘real-world’ research is and describes the philosophical basis to NDM. It identifies a number of key challenges to real-world research that were identified during data collection. Specifically, these were challenges related to: (i) data access (building and sustaining trusted relationships with practitioners); (ii) data collection (distinguishing between practitioner needs, academic aims and collective goals); and (iii) data analysis (deriving informed and useful conclusions from ‘messy’ data sets). It describes data collection and analyses techniques that were used in this thesis by outlining the ‘Critical Decision Method’ (CDM) as a type of ‘Cognitive Task Analysis’ (CTA), and outlines how modern technology, such as NVivo, can facilitate the qualitative data analysis process.
Chapter 3 provides an in-depth discussion on the concept of decision inertia and failures to act. It outlines how although there is a plethora of research exploring the cognitive processes associated with choice implementation, that there has been a relative paucity of research on the cognitive processing linked to inaction. As this topic is relatively novel it used the ‘Critical Interpretive Synthesis’ procedure: a literature review technique that seeks to generate theoretical insight on novel concepts. Three types of action failure are discussed: ‘decision avoidance’ - the active avoidance of choice as individuals opt to disengage with choice, ‘decision inertia’ – the passive avoidance of choice through redundant and persistent effortful deliberation between options, and ‘implementation failure’ – the behavioural manifestation of inaction by failure to execute action despite cognitive commitment. It also identifies six theoretical antecedents that may increase the likelihood of inaction: (i) task ambiguity; (ii) social ambiguity; (iii) inexperience in the decision domain; (iv) negative affect; (v) indecisive personalities; and (vi) avoidant goals and motivation. The results of this synthesis provided the theoretical foundation upon which subsequent data chapters were based.
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Chapter 4 is the first of two chapters that sought to qualitatively explore the key challenges to command level decision making in the emergency services. CDM – a type of CTA that uses retrospective recall to investigate the cognitive processing of complex choices – was used to interview n=31 command level decision makers from the Police Service (n=12), Fire and Rescue Service (n=15) and Ambulance Service (n=4). Interview transcripts were analysed using an inductive grounded theory approach to contribute to the theoretical understanding of decision inertia. It emerged that a salient challenge to command level decision making was when commanders were required to trade-off competing goals; namely approach motivated goals to ‘save life’ against avoidance motivated goals to ‘prevent further harm’. Goal conflict arose as commanders were anxious to avoid potential negative consequences, both in the short-term and long-term. Furthermore, negative consequences directly competed with one another, as they were associated to both causing harm through action (commission) and harm through inaction (omission); leading to redundant cognitive deliberation. Goal conflict arose at individual levels and social team-levels. Recommendations for overcoming these effects through self-awareness and multi- agency training are discussed.
Chapter 5 sought to investigate how different types of uncertainty may interact with decision inertia in emergency incident contexts. A grounded theory approach was once again used to explore the CDM interview transcripts, yet this time with a focus on uncertainty. Support was found for the endogenous-exogenous taxonomy of uncertainty in complex team environments (Alison, et al., 2015). Endogenous uncertainties (relating to the situational characteristics of the emergency incident) were derived from: (i) lacking, ambiguous or too much information; (ii) unreliable or unavailable resources; (iii) time pressure; (iv) social management issues (public and media); and (v) adapting to and coping with budget cuts and austerity. Exogenous uncertainties (associated with team processing) were derived from: (i) communication problems regarding insufficient updating and miscommunication; (ii) poor role understanding, both in terms of own obligations and erroneous expectations on other agencies’ roles; (iii) trust issues associated with distrust, mistrust and a trust paradox; and (iv) competitiveness within the command environment due to competing and conflicting goals. Implications for reducing
25 exogenous uncertainty by improving team processes, in order to reduce the effects of endogenous factors, are discussed.
Chapter 6 presents data that was collected from an immersive, multi-agency simulation conducted using the ‘Hydra’ simulation system. This chapter took a mixed-methods approach to empirically test some of the conclusions derived from Chapter 4 relating to goals and motivation. In order to supplement the recent classroom training of emergency response agencies, the simulation was of a ‘Marauding Terrorist Firearms Attack’ (MTFA) at a busy city centre train station, where n=50 experienced commanders from the three blue lights services were split into 13 multi-agency teams, who each completed the same scenario. Participants were required to ‘log’ their decisions during the simulation in a time-stamped computer system. They also completed a questionnaire after they finished the simulation. It was found that respondents identified six key goals during the incident, of which three were coded as being approach oriented (save life, establish situation awareness, locate/neutralise threat) and three as avoidance oriented (protect wider public from harm; protect emergency responders from harm; prepare for post- incident inquiries). Analyses between agencies indicated that different agencies prioritised different goals, despite perceiving (via Likert ranking) that goals between agencies were consistent. Teams whose members predominantly stated approach goals logged faster decisions during the initial phases of the simulation, but this effect reversed later into the incident as they took longer to make decisions than avoidance oriented teams. It is suggested that although approach goals may facilitate action early on in the incident, that they become maladaptive to decision makers later in the incident, as commanders struggled to trade-off multiple competing tasks that had arisen during the course of the incident. The implications for the usefulness of approach goals in emergency incident contexts are discussed.
Chapter 7 provides empirical investigation of the relationship between the experience of uncertainty and decision making using the questionnaire data collected from the MTFA simulation. A principal component analysis of latent variables exploring the experiential reasons for delay identified three reasons for delay: (i) task uncertainty; (ii) outcome uncertainty; and (iii) reflective uncertainty. Of these, outcome uncertainty was rated significantly higher than both other types of uncertainty. This chapter was also interested in how different cognitive processing
26 styles may interact with the experience of uncertainty. The questionnaire measured cognitive processing by including two measures: Need for Cognitive Closure (NFC) (Kruglanski et al., 1993) and Cognitive Flexibility (CF) (Denis & Vander Wal, 2010). No significant effects were found between the experience of uncertainty and NFC; however CF did interact. The ‘control’ subscale of the CF inventory (which measures how much ‘control’ one perceives over difficult situations) was positively related to task and retrospective uncertainty; those high on control gave lower ratings of task and retrospective uncertainty. However, interestingly, the ‘alternatives’ subscale of the CF inventory (which measures the ability to consider multiple alternative solutions to difficult problems) was associated with increased outcome uncertainty. It is suggested that CF associated to alternatives may be maladaptive when operating in time-pressured and complex environments that demand quick solutions. Implications associated to the functional usefulness of CF when operating in complex and time pressured situations is discussed.
Chapter 8 is the final concluding chapter to this thesis. It provides a summary of the findings presented in this thesis. It provides a tabulated description to outline how the theoretical antecedents to inertia, which were identified in Chapter 3, were explored in subsequent data chapters alongside results. This discussion chapter fundamentally identifies two main conclusions from the data. Firstly, it identifies how the relationship between stimulus and non-response appears to be mediated by the anticipation of negative consequences. Commanders were found to anticipate potential negative consequences both as a result of taking action and also for not taking action. This led to salient goal conflict and derailed choice via the redundant deliberation on whether to take action or not. Secondly, it identifies the importance of how the characteristics of the decision making context may moderate the usefulness of cognitive processing strategies. Both approach goals and scoring high on cognitive flexibility seemed to impede choice when the context was time- pressured and complex. This finding has important implications for training in extreme environments whereby traditionally adaptive cognitive processing styles may be inappropriate. It finally outlines the methodological and research implications of this thesis.
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Chapter 2: A methodological framework for researching in real-world settings