Time Pressure Facilitates better decision-making

Posted on April 10, 2015

Photo: flickr

The study looks at a hypothetical aeroplane crash over a city. Nearly 200 professionals were split into separated rooms based on the sector that they belong to. Ie. Transport, police, etc. They were all given realistic data according to their function.

There are considerations that the team has to contend with, like hospital outages, terrorism, etc. when faced with a crisis. The wider challenge focuses on effective cross-agency collaboration.
The results from study shows that when responses are required from more than two agencies, it is more likely to be a successful mission if there is a sense of time pressure.

The lack of time pressure could cause communication efforts to be squandered due to the lack of coordination of decisions and actions with other agencies.

Time pressure could help to improve emergency responders’ decision making and communication as human beings tends to avoid tough choices when we can can. However, the need to make a decision due to the fear of having anticipated regret, would cause one to possible make imperfect decision. It is still better than none, as this can be monitored, evaluated and altered. In addition, a deferred decision may continue to eat up mental resources, making other decisions more difficult.


Category(s):Workplace Issues

Source material from British Psychological Society