Training Decision Makers for Complex Environments: Implications of the Naturalistic Decision Making Perspective; Book chapter

摘要

Perhaps the most significant contribution of the Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) perspective is that it has forced researchers to reevaluate the assumptions they hold about how people make decisions in 'real' environments. A logical extension is to examine the 'practical' implications of this theoretical perspective on decision making. In particular, it is of interest to determine how conclusions drawn from the NDM perspective affect the manner in which decision making might be optimized, or at least improved. The purpose of this chapter is to examine NDM-related theorizing from the standpoint of what it implies for how decision makers are trained. It is based largely on the panel discussion devoted to this topic. The panelists included the authors, John Schmitt, Hugh Wood, Raanan Lipshitz, and Jon Fallesen. It became clear from the panel discussion that the panelists were not familiar with any empirical investigations of the effectiveness of NDM-generated training interventions. This conclusion was bolstered by an extensive literature search they conducted for the purpose of identifying studies on this topic. Therefore, this chapter is necessarily analytical in nature. It focuses on generating propositions for training the cognitive aspects of decision making as suggested by the NDM perspective. The chapter discusses the characteristics of effective decision makers, the mechanisms of expert decision making, and the implications of NDM theories for training decision makers.