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stress, judgment, decision-making, emergency management, mining 

paper discusses human judgment and decision-making under stress. The authors review 

selected recent literature across various disciplines and suggest a definition of stress within the 

context of decision-making during the management of emergencies. They also discuss fieldwork by 

the Pittsburgh Research Laboratory, NIOSH, which explores traumatic incident stress, the 

relationship between previous training and performance under stressful conditions, and human 

behavior in underground mine fires. The authors assert that stress is one of the factors that 

decision-makers must contend with in most life-or-death situations. They suggest that a better 

understanding of individual's judgment and decision-making activities while under stress would 

yield a better understanding of how people reach the choices they make in emergencies. This 

enhanced understanding would be of enormous value to emergency managers, researchers, and 

policymakers. 

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the effect of stressful conditions on human judgment is of importance to emergency 

managers. In natural or human-induced emergencies, the decisions that are made in the first 

minutes, hours, and days are critical to the successful mitigation, damage control, prevention of 

structure and human loss, control of financial costs, and ultimately the overall conclusion of the 

disaster. The impact of the effect of stress on professional judgment is significant. During an 

emergency situation, critical judgments are frequently made under conditions of temporary or 

prolonged stress. Emergency decision-makers are required to process massive amounts of 

information, which is sometimes incomplete or faulty, under severe time constraints. 

Definitions 

use of the term "stress" is rooted deeply in the literature. Lazarus and Lazarus (1994, p.220) 

discuss the use and definition of the word "stress" and note that it was used as early as the 

fourteenth century to mean hardship, straits, or adversity of affliction. In the seventeenth century, a 
physicist-biologist, Robert Hooke, tried to help engineers design man-made stluctures such as 

bridges, which had to carry heavy loads and resist buffeting by winds, earthquakes and other 

natural forces that could destroy them. An important and practical engineering task, therefore, was 

how to design bridges to resist these loads, or stresses. Hooke' s analysis greatly influenced the 

way stress came to be thought of in physiology, psychology, and sociology - as an environmental 

demand on a biological, psychological, or social system. 

One popular definition stipulates that "stress is a process by which certain work demands 

evoke an appraisal process in which perceived demands exceed resources and result in undesirable 

physiological, emotional, cognitive and social changes" (Salas et aI., 1996, p.6). The authors hold 

this definition as one of the most appropriate for emergency management purposes, because 

"demand exceeding resource" is a key factor, either in the management of an emergency or in the 

response of an individual. The focus is on the demand -- which may come from numerous sources 

including the environment, physiological constraints and social factors -- and the human resource, 

which is dependent, again, upon numerous factors including individual perception, training, and 

expenence. 

The relationship of stress to judgment and decision-making is an aspect of human behavior that 

remains relatively unexplored (Hammond, Gillis, 1993). Consequently, the literature in this 

area is limited and not always conclusive. Gillis (1993, p. 1355) maintains that "while research on 

1) the nature and consequences of stress; and 2) human judgment and decision-making are large 

and varied, there is virtually no overlap between the two despite the obvious practical importance 

of the effect of stress on judgments ..." Hammond points out that the notion of stress having an 

influence on judgment was only first broached during a US Congressional hearing in 1988. At 

issue was compensation for the victims of Iran Air Flight 655, which was shot down by the 

American cruiser Vincennes over the Persian Gulf. A second hearing was called "to examine the 

impact of human factors such as stress" on the crew's perlormance. 

1.2 The Congressional Inquiry 

Two questions posed during the second Congressional hearing are of interest to this discussion: 1) 

Does the perlormance during the shoot-down identify elements of human behavior that are poorly 

understood? and (2) What have researchers uncovered to date on man' s ability to make rapid and 

even complex decisions in high-stress environments? (Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House 

of Representatives, 1989). Four behavioral scientists, identified as expert witnesses, testified and 

wrote reports to the Defense Policy Panel of the Armed Services in 1989 concluding that we know 

almost nothing about the extent to which decisions are affected by stressful circumstances, much 

less the manner in which the decisions are influenced by high-stress environments. 

The agreement among these experts was three-fold. First, stress is an area that has not been 

thoroughly studied and we know little about stress in group situations. Secondly, it is believed that 

the competence of human judgment is decreased by stress (even though the experts could not cite 

empirical data). Finally, the scientists concluded that stress narrows the focus of attention, 

implying a negative impact on judgment. In hindsight, these experts appeared to be completely 

correct only in their first conclusion - that stress is not a thoroughly studied area of human 

behavior. Conclusions two and three are discussed further in this paper, and the authors suggest 

the 1989 analysis was too simplistic. 

One recommendation of the Committee to Congress was that stress needed to be studied further. 

Meanwhile, the American Psychological Association and the National Institute for Occupational 

Safety and Health (NlOSH) joined forces in 1990, declaring the 90's to be the "Decade of Stress." 

During that decade, resources and attention were focused on increasing knowledge about the 

human stress response and its relationship to numerous variables. 
1.3 Paper Overview 

Over a dozen years have passed since the Congressional hearings on Iran Flight 655, and although 

no conclusive data on judgment and decision-making have emerged, a number of studies have 

reached conclusions of interest to those who must make decisions under stress. The research is 

scattered throughout the social, psychological, physiological, and medical literature with varying 

degrees of quality and breadth. This paper presents a selection of these studies with the intention of 

stimulating a dialogue among those managers and others who are responsible for developing 

models and planning responses that require decision-making in disaster situations. 

Assumptions and key issues 

2.1 Stress is affected by perception. 

It is critical to include the concept of perception when discussing stress in relation to performance, 

including performance in judgment and decision-making. The reader should note that in Section 

1.1, discussing the definition of stress, the key phrase "perceived demands" is used. Ability to cope 

with stress is dependent upon an individual's perception or interpretation of an event. Gillis (1993) 

suggests that stressful circumstances do not automatically lead to problems in judgment; it is the 

perceived experience of distress. One obvious implication of such a notion is that an attempt 

should be made whenever possible to minimize distress by psychological, pharmacological, or 

other means -before a subject enters the judgmental arena. 

2.2 Competence in judgment is always compromised under stress. 

This particular conclusion of the experts in the 1989 Congressional hearings deserves further 

evaluation. It is important to note that both improved pe$orinumzce and pe$onnamzce degradation 

have been associated with increased stress (Poulton, 1976). For some individuals, heightened 

stress elevates their performance. Others are vulnerable to the negative impacts of stress, which 

results in diminished performance. A physiological example of this positive/negative dynamic of 

stress is athletic performance. An athlete desiring to be at an optimal performance level while 

competing demands an optimal stress level. The stress level should be enough to stimulate top 

performance, but not enough to over-stress the body, because performance declines as the body 

moves toward exhaustion. 

Studying the effect of stress on performance and judgment, Dorner and Pfeifer (1993) subjected 40 

subjects to a computerized forest firefighting game. Half of the subjects were placed under 

conditions of stress (a disturbing noise) and the others were left to focus on their task. The exercise 

involved varying levels of difficulty and lasted five hours. The researchers found that subjects 

under stress performed equally to those not stressed, but their problem solving patterns were 

different. Stressed subjects focused on the general outline of the problem, while non-stressed 

individuals relied on in-depth analysis. Consequently, stressed subjects made fewer errors in 

setting priorities while non-stressed subjects controlled their fiefighting operations better. 

Two Greek researchers, Kontogiannis and Kossiavelou (1999), examined the decision-making 

strategies and cooperation patterns used by proven, efficient teams in adapting their behavior to 

cope with stressful emergencies. The authors conclude that stress restricts cue sampling, decreases 

vigilance, reduces the capacity of working memory, causes premature closure in evaluating 

alternative options, and results in task shedding. A study of military commanders (Serfaty and 

Entin, 1993) found that teams with records of superior performance have one common critical 

characteristic: They are extremely adaptive to varying demands. The teams in their study could 

maintain performance using just one-third of the time usually available to make decisions, but the 

mode of communication changed. Initially, the team responded to explicit requests in 

communications from commanders. As time pressure increased, they stopped waiting for explicit 
requests and instead provided commanders with information they implicitly determined would be 

useful. 

The authors suggest that changes from 'explicit' to 'implicit' communication can help teams 

maintain performance under time pressure. Implicit coordination patterns, anticipatory behavior, 

and redirection of the team communication strategy are evident under conditions of increased timepressure. The authors conclude that effective changes in communication patterns may involve 

updating team members, regularly anticipating the needs of others offering unrequested 

information, minimizing interruptions, and articulating plans at a high level in order to allow 

flexibility in the role of front-line emergency responders. The authors found support for the main 

hypothesis that team coordination strategies will evolve from explicit coordination under low 

workload conditions to implicit coordination as work load increases. 

2.3 Stress is related to information. 

In studies of escape from underground mine fires, researchers have identified several human 

behavioral and organizational dimensions relevant to understanding decision-making under duress. 

First, initial warnings in dangerous situations are often unclear, sometimes due to the way 

technology behaves, and sometimes due to faulty communication. This can lead to different 

interpretations of the problem. Second, people frequently fail to gather the right kinds of 

information, which prevents them from making appropriate responses. Third, once a decision is 

made, individuals respond well to a leader; however, if leadership is lacking people tend to become 

confused. Finally, apparatus (e.g., those used in mine emergencies) may not work as expected or 

may fail. Thus, emergency decision-makers under stress not only have the effects of their own 

stress response and its resulting consequences, the information they must base their judgments on is 

often unclear, faulty, and incomplete (NIOSH, 2000). 

2.4 Stress narrows the focus of attention. 

A primary conclusion of the experts at the Congressional hearing was that stress narrows one's 

focus. Time pressure studies, where the subject is given a task and a specific, usually 

unreasonable, time to complete it, generally support this conclusion. Other studies, however, 

indicate inconclusive results for this conclusion (Hammond, 2000). Negative informatiorz gairzs 

become important under time pressure, because they need to be evaluated and discarded. If a 

situation involves risk (as in response to an emergency), time pressure studies show that the subject 

becomes more cautious and adopts risk-avoiding behavior with an importance placed on avoidirzg 

losses (Flanagan, 1954). These studies have shown that under time pressure the subject adopts a 

siinpler inode of irzfonnatiorz yrocessirzg in which alternatives are not explored fully, and certain 

important "cues" are used to determine the decision. From these studies, the experts conclude that 

stress rzurrows the focus of atte~ztiorz. In other words, the focus of attention shrinks, and the 

individual focuses just on critical issues and elements. This focused attention was assumed to be 

bad, but it actually may be good because it can eliminate nonessential information and highlight the 

most important sources. 

Citing two studies reported in 1993, Gillis (1993) did not find support for the "narrowing of 

attention" hypothesis. Keinan et al. (1987) tested the proposition that deficient decision-making 

under stress is due largely to an individual's failure to fulfill adequately a most elementary 

requirement of the decision-making process, i.e., the systematic consideration of all relevant 

decision alternatives. In their study, which required participants to solve decision problems while 

under stress, one group was put under stress and compared to a non-stress control group. Stress 

was found to induce a tendency to offer solutions before all decision alternatives had been 

considered and to scan such alternatives in a non-systematic fashion. 
2.5 Dynamic environments impact decision-making. 

According to Kerstholt (1994), decision-making behavior is considerably affected by the dynamics 

of environment, because most natural dynamic situations contain much uncertainty. He notes that 

a dynamic situation continually changes, and thus a decision-maker has to take temporal changes 

into consideration. He further notes that a decision- maker can use feedback on the effect of 

hislher actions on the system. In other words, as decisions are made and action is taken, the results 

of the decision may be taken into consideration and the information used in subsequent decisions. 

Additionally, in dealing with the uncertainty of a continually changing environment, the decision 

maker must achieve a trade-off between the cost of action versus the risk of non-action. 

To test his hypothesis Kerstholt conducted a computer experiment in which subjects had to control 

a system that changed over time. In this experiment, the subjects had to monitor the continuously 

changing fitness level of a simulated athlete, and prevent himher from collapsing. Information 

requests were treated as costs in the subjects' incentive system, and correct treatments were treated 

as benefits. The decision-making strategy remained constant. False alarms and "real" change in 

system parameters represented sources of deterioration in the system. Time pressure in the study 

was related to the development of the situation itself, and the allocation of time had to be correlated 

to the risk of negative consequences and the cost of delaying further information requests. The 

results showed a general speed-up of information processing as time pressure increased. Under 

high levels of time pressure, this strategy led to a significant increase in system crashes. 

It is interesting to note that requests for information were not congruent with conditions -subjects 

tended to wait until an already deteriorating situation had further deteriorated before acting. It can 

be assumed that if information is expensive in time, and actions are cheap, subjects will be more 

inclined to use an action-oriented strategy. To the contrary, subjects did not select the most 

efficient strategy -they chose further information over action. Results indicated that selection of a 

decision strategy in dynamic tasks is less adaptive than is generally concluded from studies with 

static tasks. 

Kidd et a1 (1996) linked stress and injury in another dynamic environment -farming. In a threestep secondary analysis of focus group data, one of their conclusions stated, the dimensions of 

workload that were particularly important included job and task complexity and lack of time. Both 

of these dimensions are relevant to the emergency worker. Further, as a preventative measure, the 

researchers suggested that a decrease in the number of roles performed exclusively by one 

individual could improve successful task performance. 

2.6 Stress affects behavior in emergencies. 

There are limited studies regarding the eflects of stress on behavior in emergencies. Researchers 

working with the United States mining industry have explored the issues of traumatic incident 

stress in mine disasters (Kowalski, 1995), burnout (Kowalski and Podlesny, 2000) stress levels 

related to training during a simulated escape through smoke (Vaught et al., 1997), and behaviors in 

underground mine fires (NIOSH, 2000). In the training study, small groups of miners were 

i-equired to don self-contained self-rescuers (breathing apparatus), enter an area of an underground 

limestone mine that had been filled with non-toxic theatrical smoke, and travel approximately 270 

meters to a door, through which they exited into fresh air. Individual subjects then provided a selfreport of their experiences on questionnaires administered immediately upon completion of their 

walk through smoke. The general finding was that miners who had more experience or training 

also tended to report less stress during the exercise. 

In the study of worker behaviors in underground mine fires, researchers examined eight cases in 

which groups of miners had escaped their workplaces through smoke. One goal was to determine 

whether it would be possible to model those factors that impact one's ability to make good 
decisions during an emergency. The researchers suggested that any person engaged in decisionmaking is actively involved in a process characterized by certain elements: 1) detection of a 

problem; 3,) definition or diagnosis; 3) consideration of available options; 4) choice of what is seen 

to be the best option given the perceived needs; and 5) execution of the choice based on what has 

transpired. At any moment in this process, several factors significantly impact one's ability to solve 

complex problems in a limited time: 1) psychomotor skills, knowledge, and attitudes; 3,) 

information quality and completeness; 3) stress - generated both by the problem at hand and any 

existing background problem; and 4) the complexity of elements that must be attended to. The 

resulting model posited interactions among the major components, so that heightened stress, for 

instance, might interfere with an accurate diagnosis, while an accurate diagnosis would lead to 

lowered stress levels. 

3.0 Analytical vs. intuitive judgment under stress 

There is an assumption that the best decisions are rational -based on logic and factual information. 

This assumption has implications for the discussion of judgment and decision-making under stress. 

Researchers have tended to look at reason and emotion separately. A value has been placed on 

decisions made with reason: " . . . it is a careless -but common - usage to suggest that when we 

make bad decisions, they are based on emotion, but when we arrive at good decisions, they are 

based solely on reason" (Lazarus and Lazarus, 1994, p.199). Hammond posited that different 

situations demand different forms of cognitive activity, some calling for increased analytical 

cognition, and others calling for increased reliance on intuition. Both situational analysis and 

people's reactions to them are key as we learn about judgment and stress. 

It is instructive to examine some instances of judgment under stress in which decision-makers 

followed different paths but achieved successful outcomes. Harnrnond describes the following: 

Case 1: The USS Samuel B. Roberts, operating in the Persian Gulf, struck a mine, caught 

fire, and began to sink. The Roberts' captain, Commander P.X. Rinn, drawing upon his 

training and experience, analyzed the situation and determined a course of action directly 

opposed to Navy protocol. Realizing, from his knowledge of how much water the ship 

could take on and still stay afloat, that the Roberts would sink before his crew could 

extinguish the fire, Commander Rinn made a decision to focus on keeping the ship afloat 

and give the fire second priority. He is on record as having arrived at his decision 

analytically, based on available information, training, and operational experience. 

Case 2: A United DC-10, on its way from Denver to Chicago, lost its hydraulic fluid, and 

hence, its controllability. Captain A1 Hayes and his crew had to discover an alternative 

way to fly the plane by using the throttles -something their training had not prepared them 

for - and do it with few of the cues usually available to pilots. That they were able to land 

with minimal loss of life may be attributed to intuitive decision-making under stress. 

The two cases cited by Hamrnond portray decision-malung under stress within two scenarios: one 

where the training of the decision-maker was readily applicable, and one where the decision 

makers' training had not prepared them for the exigency they faced. Yet, both instances involved 

individuals who were highly trained. In many dynamic settings, such as mining, those who are 

forced to make decisions in emergency situations have little training. That is because mines, 

fishing boats, and logging operations, among others, are dedicated to production activities rather 

than to emergencies. Thus, their personnel may have had minimal drilling on how to react during 

crises. Their decisions must, almost of necessity, be based on intuition or fragmentary knowledge. 

Considering this issue of analytical vs. intuitive judgment, a NIOSH (2000) report observed: 
"The point here is that research which focuses on judgment must include scrutiny not only 

of decisions that are made, but also of real-world variables that influence them. The quality 

of any decision may have little or no direct relationship to the eventual outcome of its 

execution in a given situation. This is because a decision-maker is constrained not only by 

the stress of the situation or personal knowledge and attitudes, but also because he or she 

can only weigh information that is available." 

Acknowledging the complex context of concrete decision-making environments and their various 

sources of stress is a fist step to understanding the skill of decision-makng and learning to 

evaluate the abilities of decision-makers. 

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Growing research interest has led to the question of what factors influence a person's ability to 

make good decisions during an emergency. There is still little agreement on how to define those 

basic concepts, including stress, necessary to assess the soundness of decisions from within both 

environmental and group contexts. The need to better understand judgment and decision-making 

under stress stems from high-risk occasions and emergency situations. The fundamental 

assumption is that, while there are untold successes, there are also notable failures resulting from 

decisions that can be ascribed to one or more errors in judgment. What part, then, does stress play 

in the commission of these errors? From a cognitive perspective, any person engaged in decisionmaking (either alone or in a group) is actively involved in a process characterized by certain 

elements. At any moment in this process, there are factors that have a large impact upon one's 

ability to solve complex problems in a limited time. 

So what is the advice for the emergency manager based on the data? Unfortunately, the authors 

cannot offer a "list" of factors to consider in judgment and decision-making under stress. The 

present, limited data does not support such an approach. There are serious limitations to 

generalizing from laboratory studies to real-life emergencies. We know that there is an interaction, 

that human stress affects human decision-making. What we do not know is the exact nature of that 

interaction. 

The research suggests that successful teams communicate amongst themselves and as the 

emergency intensifies, a flatter communication hierarchy develops with more (unsolicited) 

information coming from the field to the command center. Command Center personnel can 

facilitate and encourage this type of information. Stress is affected by perception; it is the 

perceived experience of stress that an individual reacts to. An implication of this notion is that an 

attempt should be make to minimize distress for the responders by psychological, pharmacological 

or other means before entering the judgmental arena. Contrary to popular opinion, judgment is not 

always compromised under stress. Although stress may narrow the focus of attention (the data is 

inconclusive), this is not necessarily a negative consequence in decision-making, as some studies 

show that the individual adopts a simpler mode of information processing which may help in 

focusing on critical issues. Decisions can only be made based on the information available, and 

studies have shown that many times decisions are made with incomplete information. In addition, 

the issue of training plays a part in stress and decision-making. 

Regarding the development of decision support systems, the authors offer several suggestions. 

Decision support programs should be tested under conditions of stress (time pressure is one option) 

to evaluate their effectiveness. Simulations should be used to replicate stress conditions in the 

field. New simulations should include a stress component, taking into consideration the issues 

presented in this paper. A simulation should also take into account the increased need, as an 

emergency progresses, for explicit and implicit information to be received from the field and 

integrated into the decision-making process. 
This paper has suggested that a better understanding of the interplay between stress and an 

individual's judgment and decision-making activities would yield a better understanding of how 

people reach the choices they make in emergencies. As far as studies of judgment and decisionmaking are concerned, the limited literature in this area suggests a strong need for increased 

attention to the topic. 

Stress is one of the key factors that underlies the demands on decision-makers in most life-or-death 

situations. Whether the individual is a naval commander, an airline pilot, a mineworker, or an 

emergency manager who has access to a decision support system, an emergency makes it necessary 

to deal with an enormous number of variables in a rather short time frame. 

5HIHUHQFHV

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York: Oxford University Press. 

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Wiehagen, W., Conti, R., Kowalski, K., Litton, C. U.S. Department of Health and Human 

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National Laboratory, Copenhagen, Denmark. 

$XWKRU%LRJUDSKLHV

.DWKOHHQ 0 .RZDOVNL 3K' is a Research Psychologist, certified Mine Trainer, and 

psychotherapist. She received her B.S. and M.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and 

her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Kowalski is on the TIEMS Board of Directors and 

Vice-President for Membership. 

&O]DUOHV9DXJKW3K' is a Certified Mine Safety Professional with a Ph.D. in the sociology of 

organizations from the University of Kentucky. His memberships include the American 

Sociological Association, the International Society of Mine Safety Professionals, and the United 

States Mine Rescue Association.