Why does action fail?

This chapter has identified six antecedent factors that may contribute the likelihood of inaction. Namely, action fails when decision making is challenged by factors including: (i) situation uncertainty; (ii) social uncertainty; (iii) inexperience in the decision domain; (iv) negative affect; (v) indecisive personalities; and (vi) avoidant goals and motivations (Figure 3.1). To recap, decision making is the process of selecting an action that can facilitate the achievement of a goal in an uncertain environment (Hastie, 2001). The aim of decision making is to select the option that is most appropriate for solving the decision problem in line with associated goals. Most decision process models suggest a general pattern of identifying or generating potential options, deliberating on the appropriateness of these options and then deciding upon and implementing a choice (Fellows, 2004; van den Heuvel et al., 2012). Decision making fails when individuals struggle to follow this process. This chapter will now explore six main causes that seemed to contribute to decision derailments. Each antecedent may influence inaction directly, or interact with one another to contribute to action failure.

3.6.1 Task Ambiguity

Choices are made more difficult when the problem environment is characterised with a variety of synonyms that refer to ambiguity. This can occur when there is high similarity between options, when information about options is ambiguous and when an individual is unsure of their threshold of acceptable choice (Chen, Ma & Pethtel, 2011; White & Hoffrage, 2009). Individuals will try to adapt their cognitive processing in order to reduce cognitive load and lessen the demands of mental accounting (White & Hoffrage, 2009). Typically, ambiguity increases when the decision environment is high risk (Bond & Nolan, 2011; Decker, et al., 2012; van Putten, Zeelenberg & van Dijk, 2007) and complex (Huber, 1995; Patrick, Lancellotti & Hagvedt, 2009); with a high number of poorly defined options (Brooks, 2011; Dhar, 1997; Roswarski & Murray, 2006; Tversky & Shafir, 1992); and potential negative and irreversible outcomes (Asch, Baron, Hershey et al., 1994; Patrick, Lancellotti & Demello, 2009; Tykocinski & Israel, 2006; Zeelenberg, van Dijk, Manstead & van der Pligt, 2000). For example, a commander’s situational awareness at a road traffic collision will be inhibited if there were unknown numbers

71 of casualties with unknown injuries, and if there was a lack of information over whether specialist equipment would arrive in time. A lack of information on the decision problem has been associated with implementation failure in organisational team settings (Taleai & Mansourian, 2008), and time pressure can degrade decision quality as decision makers perceive the decision challenge to be more difficult (Kozup & Creyer, 2006).

Task ambiguity therefore derails choice because it limits the decision maker’s ability to make sense of the situation and prospectively model future states (Klein, Snowdon, & Pin, 2007; Lipshitz & Strauss, 1997; van den Heuvel, et al., 2012). An accurate understanding of the situation is vital to effective decision making, as the decision maker’s understanding of the choice environment informs the way that they will process their choice and their ability to anticipate consequences associated with different options and courses of action. The visualisation of future states is an important influence on behaviour. For example, parents were found to irrationally avoid vaccinating their child when they were unable to visualise positive future consequences but instead anticipated uncontrollable and irreversible risk (Bond & Nolan, 2011). In managerial decision making, it has been found that perceived uncertainty and risk caused implementation failure as managers would rather withdraw from choice commitment than take risky action (Brooks, 2011; Decker et al., 2012). Task ambiguity can increase the perception of risk and increase the anticipation of (faulty) negative outcomes. Indeed, task ambiguity is related to ‘endogenous’ uncertainty, which is a product of unknowns associated with the decision problem, and has been found to derail decision making in high-consequence environments (e.g. Police hostage negotiation; Alison, at al., 2014). Endogenous (task) uncertainty stops action as decision makers lack confidence in their assessment of the situation and thus are unwilling to take (potentially) risky action.

3.6.2 Social Ambiguity

Alison et al (2014) found that uncertainty in high-stakes environments not only emerged from task ambiguity, but was also linked to the social and team environment. They termed this ‘exogenous’ uncertainty, and found (in their study on Police hostage negotiation training) that it was three times more prevalent than ‘endogenous’ uncertainty, and qualitatively associated to poor role understanding

72 and trust (Alison et al., 2014). Social ambiguity thus contributes to overall uncertainty in high-stakes environments. Real-world choices are rarely taken without other relevant decision makers or advisors. Indeed, ‘organizations that rely heavily on decisions made by groups may have an in-built tendency to inertia and resist change’ (p.251, White, Hafenbradl, Hoffrafe, Reisen & Woike, 2011). For example, Police, Fire and Ambulance commanders must make decisions as a coordinated team to facilitate effective emergency response by relying on information from others, whose role in providing that information must be trusted and unambiguous. The mere presence of social others creates social ambiguity and uncertainty, as individuals will erroneously deliberate on their choice whilst monitoring the choices of others (van Harreveld, van der Pligt & Nordgren, 2008). Individuals experience more regret when comparing themselves to disliked social referents (Kumar, 2004), which may increase anticipated risk and failures to act. Furthermore, a study found that when teams were presented with a task, then 50% chose to defer their choice, compared to only a tenth of individual decision makers (White, et al., 2011). The concept of ‘implementation failure’ is a key barrier to organisational decision making, as even when a choice has been made, the execution of action can fail at a behavioural level due to poor team structure (Decker et al., 2012; Taleai & Mansourian, 2008).

A culture of mistrust can derail action as individuals waste their time considering the integrity of social others, rather than focussing on the task at hand (Alison et al., 2015; Bond & Nolan, 2011; Mamhidir, et al., 2007). Poor trust reduces information sharing and the willingness to accept advice from others (Bond & Nolan, 2011; Jehn & Mannix, 2001; Leifer & Mills, 1996). Inaction further arises when one expects to receive feedback on their decisions (Zeelenberg & van Dijk, 1997) due to the salience of anticipated loss (Crotty & Thompson, 2009), the anticipation of blame (Eyre, et al., 2008; Zeelenberg, et al., 2000), and the perceived inability to personally justify choice (Beeler & Hunton, 1997; Brooks, 2011; Dhar, 1997; Tykocinski & Pittman, 1998). As such, when individuals mistrust their team members, who they rely upon for essential information to inform their choices, then they will feel more exposed and less willing to act (Mamhidir, et al., 2007). Social uncertainty relating to mistrust prevents action as individuals focus their attention

73 towards assessing the trustworthiness of advice/information, rather than the decision task.

Confusion about one’s own and others’ social roles also degrades action and contributes to social uncertainty in team settings (Alison et al., 2014). Team decisions involve a variety of individuals who each have different roles, responsibilities and experience in the decision domain (Nohrstedt, 2000). However, when individuals misunderstand their own role and hold erroneous expectations about the responsibilities of others, then this can degrade trust and increase frustration (Rake & Nja, 2009). Decision making is impeded when there is a poor understanding of role distribution (House, Power and Alison, 2014; Alison et al., 2014) or a lack of general organisational structure (Decker et al., 2012; Taleai & Mansourian, 2008). Poor interpositional knowledge, when one is unsure of how they fit into the social environment, reduces action as team members are reluctant to take responsibility for decisions that they do not perceive as their own (Budescu & Rantilla, 2000; Decker et al., 2012; Taleai & Mansourian, 2008). Role ambiguity makes decision makers both unwilling and unaware of their own and others’ responsibility and ability to implement a choice. Understanding other team members’ roles is important, as it has been found that when decision makers imagine themselves in another’s role then decision making improves (Zikmund-Fisher, Sarr, Fagerlin & Ubel, 2006). Thus, social ambiguity appears to be related to the increased likelihood of inaction.

3.6.3 Inexperience in the decision domain

It has been well documented across a number of studies that domain-specific experience facilitates decision making (Klein, Calderwood & Clinton-Cirocco, 1986). The more experience an individual has, the less likely they are to perceive risk or experience dread associated with choice (Bond & Nolan, 2011). Experience enables decision makers to efficiently process their choice even when the task is complex (Bornstein, Emler & Chapman, 1999; Braverman & Blumenthal-Barby, 2012). This is because they have relevant task-specific knowledge which reduces cognitive bias, which is more important for decision effectiveness than general knowledge associated with intelligence (Stanovich & West, 2008). Experts use ‘gut instinct’ and intuitive knowledge (Klein, et al., 1986); relying upon accurate implicit

74 and explicit ‘recognition primed’ mental models, developed through repeated exposure in the choice environment, to help guide their choice (Klein, 2008; Roswarski & Murray, 2006). Rather than having to analytically process choice in a demanding decision environment, experienced decision makers can cope with increased task demands as they use intuitive and learned responses.

Experts are also able to recognise when they do not know how to respond (Kahneman & Klein, 2009). This is important for the concept of inertia; rather than redundantly deliberate over a choice, an expert is able to recognise the need to adapt their decision strategy (e.g. adapt to attribute-based satisficing strategies when the situation is unfamiliar and/or time pressured). Inexperienced decision makers may be more at risk of decision inertia as they continue to use highly selective search strategies resulting in the redundant and inefficient deliberation of options. Indeed, Police officers, who were asked to investigate a fictitious case, were found to adapt their decision making when placed under time pressure by using more time efficient satisficing strategies when generating hypotheses (Alison, Doran, Long, Power & Humphrey, 2013). Thus experience within the decision domain can assist intuitive knowledge, reduce uncertainty and increase action implementation; thus arguably a lack of experience may contribute to increased action failure.

3.6.4 Negative affect

When faced with a difficult choice, individuals experience negative emotions (e.g. anxiety at having to make a choice) and also anticipate the potential for negative affect in the future (e.g. anticipated regret following a choice). The ‘rational-emotional’ decision making model (Anderson, 2003) suggests that individuals consider both rational costs and benefits (e.g. objective monetary gain), and more subjective and emotional factors. In other words, individuals will rationally avoid choice if they anticipate potential negative affect. Indeed, emotions that are associated with the failure to take action (via avoidance, inertia or implementation failure) include: disappointment (Zeelenberg et al., 2000); uncertainty (Bond & Nolan, 2011; Kopylov, 2009; Ritov & Baron, 1995; van den Heuvel, et al., 2012; van Dijk & Zeelenberg, 2005; White & Hoffrage, 2009; Yen & Chuang, 2008); doubt (van den Ven, Gilovich & Zeelenberg, 2010); fear (Coleman, 2010; Eyre et al., 2008); and regret (Arkes, Kung & Hutzel, 2002; Kumar, 2004; Tykocinski, &

75 Pittman, 1998). Individuals tend to overestimate the intensity of future emotions (Wilson & Gilbert, 2003) and so the thought of loss is stronger than the experience of loss. This suggests that the anticipation of negative feelings is more likely to induce avoidant processing than the experience of negative emotions. Fundamentally, when people experience or anticipate negative emotions, then they will adapt their cognitive processing to try and reduce or avoid negative emotions. The experience of negative affect may thus distract decision makers from the cognitive processing of choice, increasing the likelihood of action failure.

3.6.5 Personality

Personality research has identified how certain individuals may possess certain traits that can influence the way that they make decisions (Brooks, 2011). For example, when asked to choose between options in a given decision task, trait ‘indecisive’ individuals tend to use maladaptive cognitive processing styles that systematically compare all alternatives whilst utilising extremely high thresholds of acceptance (Patalano & Wengrovitz, 2007). They fail to take action as they use alternative-based search patterns to try and find the perfect option (i.e. are any of these options good enough?). Alternatively ‘decisive’ individuals tend to favour more adaptive attribute-based search patterns in order to select a compromise option from those that are available (i.e. which option is the best?). Trait indecisiveness not only influences individual choice, but has been associated with implementation failure in organisational team settings (Brooks, 2011). Likewise, high scores on personality measures such as ‘state-orientation’ (i.e. focus on negative emotions; ruminate on past) as opposed to ‘action-orientation’ (i.e. focus on present task) are associated with increased inertia and redundant deliberation (van Putten, Zeelenberg & van Dijk, 2009), and those high on ‘need to compare’ (i.e. need to engage in social comparisons with others) often fail to make decisions as they experience increased regret due to constant social comparison (Gibbons & Buunk, 1999; van Dijk & Zeelenberg, 2005).

Other traits associated with failures to act include: ‘desire for control’ (i.e. need to maintain control over decision outcomes: Thomas, Buboltz, Teague & Seeman, 2011); ‘outcome sensitivity’ (i.e. motivated to avoid post-decisional feedback: Dholakia, Gopinath & Bagozzi, 2005); ‘neuroticism’ (Wong, Yik & Kwong, 2006);

76 and trait ‘avoidance’ (versus approach) motivations (Corr, et al., 2013; Harmon- Jones et al., 2011). Generally, the types of personalities that are affiliated to inaction reflect poor cognitive flexibility, as they are unable to adapt to the time demands of the problem environment (Roskes et al., 2013). Fundamentally, personality traits that are associated with inaction tend to be linked to salient negative affect and anxiety, which increases cognitive load and reduces the ability for the decision maker to focus on task-relevant goals.

3.6.6 Avoidant goals and motivation

A final factor that may increase the likelihood of action failure is associated to the type of goal that the decision maker is using to guide their choice. Goals influences the way that an individual will cognitively process their choice environment, and so will influence the likelihood of whether they will take action or not. It is suggested that when decision makers seek to avoid potential negative outcomes, then they are less likely to take action. One type of goal that may derail choice implementation is the goal to ‘maximise’ one’s outcomes. When individuals seek to ‘maximise’ outcomes, they tend to use ‘alternative-based’ cognitive processing to judge if any options are good enough (Parker & Schrift, 2011). Although maximising strategies may be appropriate for when decisions are non-time bounded and/or have the potential to be deferred; the effectiveness of maximising goals reduces when decisions are needed quickly. Selective goals will increase a decision maker’s tendency to focus on subjectively meaningful attributes and raises their overall threshold of acceptance (Parker & Schrift, 2011); thus maximising goals may increase the likelihood of choice deferral and inaction.

When individuals seek to maximise outcomes then they are more likely to avoid or postpone their choice as they await better options. Individuals who score highly on measures of trait ‘indecisiveness’ chronically seek to maximise their outcomes and favour alternative-based processing styles (Patalano & Wengrovitz, 2007; van Dijk & Zeelenberg, 2005). Indeed, when individuals deliberate on a choice, they are less satisfied if they do make a choice and tend to doubt their options more, which could exacerbate decision delays (Ritov, 2006; van den Ven, et al., 2010). Alternatively, when individuals use minimum thresholds or satisficing strategies (i.e. select first option which meets threshold) then they are more likely to take action as

77 they select the first available option to meet their minimal requirements (Dhar, 1997; White & Hoffrage, 2009). They tend to adopt an ‘attribute-based’ processing styles (Patalano & Wengrovitz, 2007), which involves consideration of which option is the best and is appropriate for when decisions need to be made quickly and cannot be deferred. Thus the use of alternative-based search strategies may be characteristic of decision inertia as the decision maker tries to maximise their choice; yet this paradoxically inhibits action as no further useful information is available. Instead of ignoring the decision, they ignore the fact that no more information is available to help them make that choice.

In addition to the negative effect of ‘maximising’ goals, it is also suggested that ‘avoidance’ goals will impede action (Elliot, 2006). Generally, when individuals are motivated to avoid loss, then they are less likely to take action due to the fear of potential negative consequences (Corr & McNaughton, 2012). Individuals seek to avoid negative outcomes and so will avoid choices that can cause negative affect. Alternatively, approach goals (i.e. when one seeks to achieve positive outcomes) have been associated to increased action (Elliot, 2006). However, it is possible that approach goals (i.e. when one is oriented towards achieving positive outcomes) may negatively interact with decision making if individuals are faced with mutual attractive options. When individuals have to trade-off mutually attractive and competing goals, they will try and avoid making a choice (Karlsson, Juliusson, Grankvist & Garling, 2002). Rather than avoid choice because of anticipated negative outcomes, choice is avoided as the decision maker is unable to differentiate between options and justify their choice (Dhar, 1997; Novemsky, et al., 2007). This could be linked to ‘maximising’ goals, which also derail behaviour due to the inability to effectively compare options (Parker & Schrift, 2011). Fundamentally, it appears that different types of goals influence the use of different cognitive processing styles; both avoidant and maximising goals seem to limit the ability to make a decision.