Decision Making in Stressful Work Situations

In various occupations, experts are often faced with novel scenarios where decisions need to be made under time pressure. These decisions can often lead to unsuccessful outcomes for the organization at hand and, in extreme cases, life or death for some individuals who were involved. It is incidents such as these and the demand for preventative measures against them that calls for research on decision making within real-life settings as opposed to laboratory settings with a controlled environment and choices. The present study aims to see how individuals’ perceptions of their ability to make decisions under stress changes with experience. Participants will be given an in-basket assessment that simulates a situation where they would need to answer emails, reply to memos, voicemails etc., “on the job”. This will need to be done in a thorough manner, with accurate information, but in a short time frame. Participants will report their perceptions of their ability to make decisions under stress before the first stressful task, before the second stressful task, and a third time as if they were going to complete a different version of the same task again. Their self-reported reactions (positive/negative) to their performance will be captured each time performance feedback is given in order to see if these reactions influence their perceived decision making under stress abilities. Additionally, we are aiming to see if the expression of the individual difference neuroticism changes with task specific experience. We will also be observing if perceptions of ability to make decisions while under stress acts as a mediator between neuroticism and decision making under stress performance. This study could provide insight on the importance of training with inexperienced employees before assigning him or her a project or task that could lead to harmful outcomes. It could also suggest that individual differences need to be studied in the decision making under stress realm