Applying Psychological Models to

Military Decision Making

Adrian P. Banks & Mandeep K. Dhami
School of Psychology, University of
Surrey

What is Decision Science?

Decision science examines how people search for
and use information in order to make choices,
judgements (decisions), and predictions
Three approaches
1. Normative
How should rational people make decisions?

2. Descriptive
How do people actually make decisions?

3. Prescriptive
How can we help people make more rational
decisions?

Relevant Issues in Decision Making

How is the decision made?
compensatory vs noncompensatory

Who is making the decision?

expert vs novice

Applications to Precision Strikes

How is the decision made?
1. Do you need more or less intelligence to decide to strike?

greater strike accuracy requires more information and

evaluation of its reliability and validity, assuming all relevant
and available information will be used
but people often discard lots of this because of psychological
necessity and this does not always compromise decision
quality e.g. redundant information

2. Are you more likely to decide to strike?

Yes: reduced error/increased success, greater confidence in

ability
No: human consequences more salient but greater
psychological distance from human target and consequences

Applications to Precision Strikes

What is expertise?
knowledge includes prototypes of previous scenarios including
predictive validity of threat cues
knowledge could be implicit (intuitive)

Is this expertise transferable?

yes, but elements of old scenario are absent e.g. real time
information and hot state cognition

How do you develop and assess expertise for new

capability?
unlike novices, experts must unlearn out of date principles
barriers to learning: overconfidence, distrust in technology, lack
of relevant doctrine, implicit knowledge harder to change,
intuition

Conclusions
Considerable potential to apply psychological
models to military decision making
Compensatory models are not necessarily the
best
Need to externalise implicit knowledge and
retain what is useful for the new capability