Revisiting the Psychology of Intelligence Analysis
From Rational Actors to Adaptive Thinkers
Bess J. Puvathingal and Donald A. Hantula
Temple University
Intelligence analysis is a decision-making process rife
with ambiguous, conflicting, irrelevant, important, and
excessive information. The U.S. Intelligence Community
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is primed for psychology to lend its voice to the “ana-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
lytic transformation” movement aimed at improving the
quality of intelligence analysis. Traditional judgment
and decision making research serves as a starting point,
though recent developments in decision science advance
additional relevant perspectives that are critical to im-
proving intelligence analysis. Naturalistic decision mak-
ing offers insights into the challenging information
world of intelligence analysis and expert judgment. Re-
search on group decision making shows that group
processes are often dependent on the distribution of
information within the group, while information forag-
ing theory suggests that intelligence analysts may be
viewed as “informavores” who use adaptive strategies
to form key judgments efficiently. Psychologists should
capitalize on these advances in research and theory to
engage the intelligence community on its own grounds
and take the lead on intelligence analytic reform. A
potential research agenda and recommendations to op-
timize intelligence community effectiveness are offered.
Keywords: intelligence analysis, judgment and decision
making, naturalistic decision making, group decision mak-
ing, information foraging
T he U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) collects
enough information every day to fill the Library of
Congress by noon (Johnson, 2007). Intelligence
analysts are continually confronted with two basic chal-
lenges: information overload and severe time con-
straints. Indeed, knowing what to look for and where to
find it are two of the most critical aspects of the analyst’s
job. Catastrophic national security failures such as 9/11
prompted the IC to focus on improving the quality of
intelligence analysis in a community-wide movement
known as the Analytic Transformation (Office of the
Director of National Intelligence, 2007). Critics’ accu-
sations often boil down to intelligence analysts’ seeming
inability to “connect the dots.” Intelligence scholars,
however, caution against such an overly simplistic rally
for reform (Betts, 2002, 2007; Jervis, 2006). The con-
necting-the-dots metaphor is based on an implicit ratio-
nal choice model that implies that analysts consume all
incoming data, an unrealistic idea in this age of expo-
April 2012 ● American Psychologist
© 2011 American Psychological Association 0003-066X/12/$12.00
Vol. 67, No. 3, 199 –210 DOI: 10.1037/a0026640
nential information explosion. Indeed, analysts with
looming deadlines must manage risk to efficiently ex-
ploit relevant information. Rather than relying on an
unsophisticated metaphor and admonishing analysts to
connect more dots better, successful reform will focus
on recommendations that are sensitive to the potential
pitfalls of complex decision making in the IC. Current
psychological research in decision sciences is well
equipped to take the lead in intelligence analytic reform.
Psychology’s scientific insights into behavior make it
uniquely useful for solving problems of social significance.
From John Dewey in 1900 to Alan Kazdin in 2009, Amer-
ican Psychological Association presidents have urged the
field to stay relevant to societal concerns (Kazdin, 2009).
The growing interest in translational research is evidence
that this call to action is being heeded. The National Re-
search Council (2011) advised the Director of National
Intelligence to apply the principles and findings of behav-
ioral and social science to the IC’s analytic methods. We
encourage psychologists to aid this effort by expanding
their research on intelligence analysis.
The present article, therefore, is geared toward psy-
chologists and has two primary purposes. The first is to
promote a dialogue between the psychological community
and the IC. The second is to provide a foundation for richer
discourse by offering psychologists information to expand
research in the psychology of intelligence analysis. We
seek to accomplish these dual purposes in four ways. First,
we introduce the world of intelligence analysis to the
broader psychological community. Second, we review
some promising research programs in decision making and
information use that are especially relevant to the IC. We
then use this information to develop a preliminary research
agenda for the psychology of intelligence analysis. Finally,
we offer recommendations for psychologists to engage the
IC more directly.
This article was published Online First December 26, 2011.
Bess J. Puvathingal and Donald A. Hantula, Department of Psychol-
ogy, Temple University.
We thank Andy Karpinski, Phil Hineline, Jack Levy, Ralph Rosnow,
and Keren Yarhi-Milo for their comments on previous versions of this
manuscript. We especially appreciate Richard Immerman’s encourage-
ment and guidance throughout this project.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Donald A. Hantula, Department of Psychology, Temple University, Phil-
adelphia, PA 19122. E-mail: hantula@temple.edu
199

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Bess J.
Puvathingal
The Intelligence Community’s Analytic
Transformation
The National Security Act of 1947 formed the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) as the first peacetime U.S. in-
telligence agency. At that time, national security focused
on state actors, primarily the Soviet Union. Intelligence
processes and agencies formed around this well-defined
problem. In Executive Order No. 12,333 (1981), President
Reagan delegated responsibilities amongst agencies and
provided a framework for how the IC should function in
service to national security interests.
The emergence of increased numbers of state actors
and nonstate actors (e.g., terrorism, weapons proliferation,
cyber threats) relevant to U.S. national security rendered
the old ways of thinking obsolete. In the past, it might have
been sufficient to have only, for example, a Yemen eco-
nomic analyst and an Afghanistan political analyst. But
discrete silos of traditional state expertise can leave gaping
holes in knowledge; ever-increasing nonstate threats cre-
ated a need for counterterrorism analysts who cut across
these state boundaries. Moreover, because many intelli-
gence analysts began as Soviet experts, emerging threats
meant these analysts had to be retrained quickly. Fiscal
constraints forced intelligence agencies to shift analysts
frequently among different accounts, contributing to a tu-
multuous period of balancing increased flexibility with
decreased expertise.
This increasingly strained system continued in much
the same way as it started until the 2000s. But then the IC
received the lion’s share of the blame following the 9/11
attacks, and shortly thereafter, the flawed National Intelli-
gence Estimate on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in
Iraq sealed its fate. This report’s judgment that there were
200
WMD in Iraq was instrumental in the decision to invade
Iraq (Betts, 2007). Critics cried that the IC did not connect
the dots enough to prevent the 9/11 attacks but then con-
nected too many dots in its “slam dunk” case for WMD. As
the political firestorm after these events branded the IC as
the cause of two national security failures in quick succes-
sion, the government was forced to act.
Interagency communication and the quality of intelli-
gence analysis were perceived to be the underlying reasons
for such failures. IC reform became a national priority, and
Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-458). To address
interagency communication, this legislation created the Of-
fice of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which
was mandated to oversee and increase communication be-
tween all IC agencies. To address the analysis problem,
Intelligence Community Directive 203 (ODNI, 2007) out-
lined standards for the IC’s renewed focus on analytic
tradecraft. The Analytic Transformation movement thus
began. Offices were formed and programs were developed
with a central priority to improve intelligence analysis (for
a history of IC reform, see Immerman, 2011).
What Is Intelligence Analysis?
Intelligence analysis is a decision-making process rife with
ambiguous, conflicting, irrelevant, important, and exces-
sive information. Former National Security Advisor Brent
Scowcroft (2000) stated that the goal of intelligence is to
“inform and narrow the range of uncertainty within which
a decision must be made. . .and keep policy within reason-
able bounds” (p. A18). At the most basic level, the ana-
lyst’s job is to answer questions, provide warnings, and
assess current developments (Fingar, 2011).
The IC is an essential component of national security,
consisting of 16 agencies providing timely information and
key judgments to policymakers to inform national security
decisions. There are approximately 100,000 IC employees,
20% of whom are intelligence analysts (Fingar, 2011).
Though there is no one community-wide definition of the
intelligence process, the general practice involves collect-
ing, processing, and analyzing intelligence to produce re-
ports for policymakers, with the requirements for these
reports typically being defined by the policymakers (Lo-
wenthal, 2009). Analysts are continually barraged with
incoming information, and one of their most critical tasks is
choosing which information to use. A variety of sources are
integrated to serve as the foundation for analytic products,
including
● open source intelligence (OSINT)—publicly avail-
able information (e.g., newspapers),
● human intelligence (HUMINT)— overt information
(e.g., from diplomatic personnel) and covert infor-
mation (e.g., from clandestine sources, foreign gov-
ernment contacts),
● signals intelligence (SIGINT)— data transmissions
(e.g., communications), and
● geospatial intelligence (GEOINT)— geographical
information (e.g., satellite images).
April 2012 ● American Psychologist

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Donald A.
Hantula
Analytic products are becoming an increasingly col-
laborative effort, ranging from current intelligence (e.g.,
Syria’s current security situation) to strategic, long-range
reports (e.g., Iran’s nuclear capabilities in 10 years). In
addition to specific topics requested by policymakers (e.g.,
description of Libyan opposition forces), Lowenthal (2009)
highlighted ongoing products such as
● the President’s Daily Brief (PDB)—a daily report
for the president produced with community-wide
input that highlights current intelligence and na-
tional security issues,
● the Worldwide Intelligence Review (the WIRe)—a
daily intelligence “newspaper” produced by the CIA
and delivered each morning to policy, security, and
military personnel, and
● the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)—the Na-
tional Intelligence Council report for senior policy-
makers that highlights future trends in major na-
tional security issues.
The Psychology of Intelligence
Analysis: The Current State of the
World
Parallels between intelligence analysis and the broader
science of decision making have not gone unnoticed by the
IC. The IC has largely focused on applications of judgment
and decision making (JDM), a psychologically informed
response to normative economic models describing deci-
sion anomalies. JDM contends that heuristics (Tversky &
Kahneman, 1974) lead to cognitive biases, which cause
errors in judgment.1 Heuer’s (1999) The Psychology of
Intelligence Analysis, considered one of the foremost tools
in the intelligence analyst’s toolkit, focuses on these cog-
April 2012 ● American Psychologist
nitive biases to describe the limitations faced by intelli-
gence analysts. Rooted in psychological science, it is a
worthy resource and an excellent start to applying psycho-
logical findings to a critical national security problem. On
the other hand, it is only a start. Almost 50% of Heuer’s
citations are from the 1970s and fewer than 10% are from
the past decade; thus to rely solely on this resource is not
to take advantage of the rapidly advancing decision science
research.
Heuer (1999) argued that confirmation bias is a par-
ticularly challenging issue facing intelligence analysts, and
he offered the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH),
an eight-step strategy designed to mitigate it. The key
component is a hypothesis-testing matrix, with columns
representing potential hypotheses and rows representing
available evidence. Cells contain ratings of the extent to
which evidence is consistent or inconsistent with hypoth-
eses. The winning hypothesis is the one with the least
inconsistent evidence. ACH is presumed to combat two
tendencies: (a) focusing on a single hypothesis and (b)
seeking only evidence confirming that hypothesis.
While ACH is perhaps the most celebrated application
of psychology in the IC, two issues call into question its
dominant role in analytic tradecraft. First, empirical evi-
dence for confirmation bias is mixed, suggesting that a
strategy focused on its assumed ubiquity may be mis-
guided. Early empirical support for confirmation bias fo-
cused on simple decisions (e.g., rule identification tasks;
Wason, 1960). However, later research failed to find the
bias in rule identification tasks (Ayton, 1992) or pseudodi-
agnosticity tasks (Crupi, Tentori, & Lombardi, 2009);
when confirmation bias is found, simple behavioral primes
remediate the bias (Evans, Venn, & Feeney, 2002). In
contrast, Tolcott, Marvin, and Lehner (1989) explored con-
firmation bias with Army tactical intelligence analysts in a
complex battlefield analysis task and found support for the
bias, whereas Jervis (2010) pointed to confirmation bias in
postmortem analyses of intelligence failures. Still, the in-
consistent findings on confirmation bias suggest that simply
assuming its pervasive presence in the IC may not be the
most effective means of developing psychologically in-
formed strategies for analytic tradecraft.
The second issue is again an empirical one. Even if
confirmation bias is assumed to exist, there is little research
on ACH as a means of mitigating it. In a rare empirical
study addressing both the existence of confirmation bias
and ACH as a potential remediating strategy, Lehner, Adel-
man, Cheikes, and Brown (2008) explored whether exper-
tise and use of ACH influenced the extent to which partic-
ipants displayed confirmation bias. They found
confirmation bias, primarily in the form of overweighting
neutral or confirming evidence, as opposed to distorting
disconfirming evidence as confirming. Confirmation bias
1
Alternative responses to classical economic decision making in-
clude social psychology’s motivated cognition (Fiske & Taylor, 1991),
political psychology’s expert political judgment (Tetlock, 2005), and
political science’s bureaucratic politics (Allison & Zelikow, 1999).
201
 was much weaker for the intelligence analysts than for the
nonanalysts, and ACH did not mitigate it in intelligence
analysts, although it did for nonanalysts. It is possible that
there is an expertise threshold above which confirmation
bias does not significantly impact decision processes and
ACH is no longer effective. Although the results of one
study are not conclusive, Lehner et al.’s findings suggest
that focusing on confirmation bias and ACH might be too
narrow an approach. At the very least, incorporating ad-
vances in decision research can provide insights relevant to
the IC’s decision making and its complex world.
Alternative Perspectives
Naturalistic Decision Making
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Naturalistic decision making (NDM) researchers explore
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decisions fraught with high stakes, time pressure, uncer-
tainty, and the messiness inherent in “real” decisions. They
argue that “real” decisions are made by experts nested
within the contexts of their professional worlds and must
therefore be studied that way. This focus on “real” deci-
sions made by “real” decision makers necessitates a shift
from JDM’s laboratory research to applied settings with a
variety of professions, including the military (Hoffman,
2007), firefighting (Klein, 2001), and law enforcement (Al-
ison, Barrett, & Crego, 2007).
As a counterpoint to the choice models of classical,
neoclassical, and JDM decision research, the essential pro-
cess in NDM is how individuals assess situations and
develop expert intuition rather than how they choose
among available options. Recognition-primed decision
making (Klein, Calderwood, & MacGregor, 1989) is cen-
tral to developing intuition. Experts poll their experience
quickly to recognize a relevant prior situation and then use
mental simulations to imagine how that course of action
might presently occur. If the outcome is satisfactory, they
act. If not, they modify it or scroll to the next plausible
scenario. This model has been replicated with various
professionals (e.g., naval commanders, pilots, infantry of-
ficers) and has been shown to be the most common strategy
used by experienced decision makers, representing 80%–
95% of cases studied (Lipshitz, Klein, Orasanu, & Salas,
2001).
NDM and intelligence analysis. Hutchins,
Pirolli, and Card (2007) explored decision processes em-
ployed by tactical and strategic military intelligence ana-
lysts. Analysts’ strategies conformed to Klein et al.’s
(1989) recognition-primed decision making, and informa-
tion processing and system constraints were identified.
There were two basic information challenges: data uncer-
tainty and overload. Analysts processed conflicting infor-
mation and made probabilistic judgments on ambiguous
data while simultaneously juggling several reports, adding
significantly to the workload. Moreover, analysts reported
pressure to process all incoming information regardless of
its volume. One participant described this process as look-
ing for “the little jewels in the huge data stream” (Hutchins
et al., p. 298) while knowing that the vast majority of the
stream was irrelevant. Time and technology constraints
202
challenged analytic performance. Analysts reported that
timelines to produce reports were increasingly shorter,
sometimes “channel[ing] thinking down a certain path”
(Hutchins et al., p. 298). Further, they reported that ad-
vances in technology dramatically increased potentially
useful information, challenging analysts’ ability to process
it all. Many of these technological tools varied in quality
and were incompatible with one another. For example,
information in a CIA database may not be available in a
National Security Agency database, hindering interagency
collaboration.
Hutchins et al. (2007) painted a rich picture of the
complexities of intelligence analysis, but their findings are
limited by the typical criticism of NDM: Its methodology is
“soft” (Yates, 2001). Because qualitative methods (e.g.,
cognitive task analyses) do not adhere to the rigor of true
experimental design, quantitative psychologists question its
value. In response to this criticism, Hoffman, Crandall, and
Shadbolt (1998) reported high interrater and test–retest
reliability across studies. Lipshitz et al. (2001) argued that
using the same standards to evaluate both laboratory and
observational studies is not appropriate; methods should
drive evaluative methodological standards rather than the
reverse.2
NDM and JDM: Rivals or partners in intel-
ligence analysis? Though NDM appears to be the
antithesis of JDM, Kahneman and Klein (2009) largely
agreed on the conditions under which intuition can be
trusted. They argued that the environment plays the great-
est role in whether intuition leads to skilled judgment; it
must be predictable and provide opportunities for clear
feedback. Expert intuition is gained through ongoing ex-
perience in this environment. In an unpredictable environ-
ment without clear feedback, however, decision makers are
prone to biased judgment by relying on simple heuristics to
guide intuition rather than experience-driven skills.
One might wonder whether NDM models are suitable
for intelligence analysis, a world where clear feedback on
analytic insights is not the norm. The answer is not a simple
yes or no. Analytic products come in many forms; some
types of analyses may be prone to biased judgment,
whereas others may best be described by NDM’s intuitive
expertise model. For example, Tetlock and Mellers (2011)
contended that anticipating the outcome of the third-gen-
eration North Korean succession process is a long-range
political event with little opportunity for clear feedback
(and thus subject to biased judgment), whereas directing
Predator drone attacks is a high-frequency event with clear
feedback opportunities (giving rise to skilled judgment).3
Hence, the psychology of intelligence analysis should nei-
ther focus solely on JDM models nor abandon JDM in
2
Lipshitz et al. (2001) offered credibility and transferability as two
potential criteria. Credibility refers to a consistent logic maintained
throughout the study. While NDM studies intentionally avoid extrapolat-
ing findings from their samples to the population writ large, the transfer-
ability criterion argues that general features of a case study should transfer
to other situations.
3
Special thanks to a reviewer for suggesting the use of this example.
April 2012 ● American Psychologist
 favor of NDM models. Research is necessary to uncover
the types of analytic work that would benefit from each
model, and future decision research should not give short
shrift to either.
NDM is a promising approach that heeds the call for
psychology to be more inclusive in what it considers to be
worthwhile methods in service to important questions (Ro-
zin, 2009). In addition to identifying the conditions under
which expert intuition can be trusted in the IC, applying
NDM to intelligence analysis offers insights into fruitful
avenues for future quantitative research. The complemen-
tary nature of qualitative and quantitative research suggests
that NDM studies can and should serve as a springboard for
further quantitative analyses. Indeed, Hutchins et al. (2007)
pointed to information-processing challenges as a recurring
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theme in intelligence analysis. Focusing research on how
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decision makers seek, collect, and share information under
risky and time-sensitive conditions may be a first step to
understanding decision making in the IC. The following
perspectives build on theories of information use to high-
light areas in which the IC can benefit from the predictions
of a rigorous psychological science.
Group Decision Making
Intelligence analysis is undergoing a shift from its tradi-
tional role as an essentially individual activity toward a
new definition of analysis as a collaborative effort. Indeed,
ODNI’s (2008) Vision 2015: A Globally Networked and
Integrated Intelligence Enterprise calls for collaboration to
move “away from coordination of draft products toward
regular discussion of data and hypotheses, early in the
research phase” (p. 13). Accordingly, to align with this
focus, psychology’s contribution to the IC Analytic Trans-
formation should include findings from research on group
decision making.
Early research on group decision making in the con-
text of national security decisions focused on groupthink
(Janis, 1972), a concept developed largely from a case
study of the Bay of Pigs, a failed covert CIA mission to
overthrow the Castro regime at the height of the Cold War.
Though groupthink has contributed greatly to the field by
spawning a wealth of group decision research, its current
relevance is questionable because of its equivocal empirical
support and the changed international security picture since
the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961.
Empirical research on groups has since focused on
two major areas: group performance and group decision
making. Group performance research explores the product
of group decision making (e.g., solution, decision). Groups
often do not achieve the optimal level of performance and
exhibit “process loss” (Hill, 1982; Steiner, 1972); subse-
quent to these findings, much of the group performance
literature explored group suboptimality. Not recognizing
and using experts within the group (Moreland & Argote,
2003) and high-stress situations (Brown & Miller, 2000)
were implicated in suboptimal group performance. Straus,
Parker, and Bruce (2011) noted confirmation bias, over-
confidence, and group polarization effects as potential
sources of process loss in analytic teams. As Kahneman
April 2012 ● American Psychologist
and Klein (2009) suggested, however, the notion of an
optimal decision is perhaps not as applicable to the murky
waters of intelligence analysis.
In research on group decision processes, a group can
be a distinct information-processing unit (Hinsz, Tindale,
& Vollrath, 1997), and the quality of the group’s decision
is a function of distribution of information in the group.
Stasser and Titus’s (1985) classic study found a collective
information sharing bias, whereby shared information
(i.e., information possessed by all members prior to discus-
sion) was more predictive of group decisions than was
unshared information (i.e., information known only to one
member prior to discussion), even when shared information
favored an inferior decision. Stasser and Titus concluded
that groups did not pool information optimally, resulting in
inferior decisions when prediscussion information was bi-
ased against the best alternative, a phenomenon also known
as the common knowledge effect (Gigone & Hastie, 1993).
This effect implies clear challenges to analytic teamwork in
the IC. Consider a hypothetical team of analysts in Novem-
ber 1941 asked to anticipate the location of the next attack
against Allied Forces. Each analyst individually holds lim-
ited unique information of an imminent attack on Pearl
Harbor and a great deal of shared information of an attack
on Burma. The shared information bias predicts that the
team will pool the shared information supporting a Burma
attack, thereby missing the attack on Pearl Harbor.
There are several explanations for this information
sharing bias. Stasser and Stewart (1992) argued that the
collective information sharing bias is the result of proba-
bility; there are more sampling opportunities for shared
information simply because it is known by more members.
Social psychologists suggest that probabilistic accounts are
incomplete and instead argue for the mutual enhancement
effect (Wittenbaum, Hubbell, & Zuckerman, 1999), claim-
ing that individuals prefer shared information because of
resulting positive evaluations. Individuals are perceived as
more knowledgeable and credible when they offer infor-
mation that others already know. On the other hand, cog-
nitive psychologists turn toward biased information recall
(Schulz-Hardt, Frey, Lüthgens, & Moscovici, 2000), a ten-
dency to remember information supporting one’s initial
preference and to forget information not supporting it,
rendering one less likely to recall the very information that
must be pooled to make the best decision. Straus et al.
(2011) offer an escalation-of-commitment paradigm,4 the-
orizing that individuals tend to persist in their initial judg-
ments despite being confronted with contradictory infor-
mation. Finally, Lightle, Kagel, and Arkes (2009) offer the
group correction factor, which suggests that groups are
4
Straus et al. (2011) invoked escalation of commitment on the basis
of a quasi-rational choice view that escalation is a decision error resulting
from attempts to justify past choices. An alternative empirically supported
behavior economic model views escalation not as an error but as an
adaptation to decision dilemmas and an equivocal environment, such as
that faced in the IC, by seeking additional information (Bragger, Hantula,
Bragger, Kirnan, & Kutcher, 2003).
203
 able to correct errors in the recall of shared information
better than errors in unshared information.
Though the mechanism remains unclear, several fac-
tors exacerbate the information sharing bias (Straus et al.,
2011). First, tasks with a clear solution are less prone to the
bias than are those involving judgments in ambiguous
situations (Stasser & Stewart, 1992). Second, time pressure
worsens the bias (Kelly & Karau, 1999), and third, the size
of the team matters. Stasser, Taylor, and Hanna (1989)
found that larger teams tended to focus on shared informa-
tion more than did smaller teams; three-person groups
outperformed six-person groups. Importantly, all three fac-
tors are ever-present in the IC. Forming judgments quickly
in ambiguous situations is the modal state of affairs for
intelligence analysts, and IC teams range from 3 to 18
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members, with an average of approximately 10 members
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(Straus et al., 2011).
Information Foraging
With the implicit assumption that decision makers must
first choose relevant information with which to make sub-
sequent decisions, information foraging theory can serve as
an overarching framework for decision research in the IC.
Indeed, if relevant information is not chosen, all other
judgment and decision efforts are frivolous at best, cata-
strophic at worst. Information foraging theory directly ad-
dresses two major constraints faced by intelligence ana-
lysts: information overload and severe time pressure.
Information foraging has its roots in behavioral ecology’s
foraging theory (Stephens, Brown, & Ydenberg, 2007), a
generalized framework for understanding the naturally se-
lected decision rules by which predators capture prey and
survive in a risky world. Foraging research has been con-
ducted across a wide variety of fields, investigating animals
in behavioral ecology (e.g., Stephens et al., 2007) and
humans in anthropology (Winterhalder, 1992), cognitive
psychology (Rode, Cosmides, Hell, & Tooby, 1999), con-
sumer psychology (Hantula, Brockman, & Smith, 2008),
and information systems (Fu & Pirolli, 2007).
The three phases of foraging are searching, handling,
and consuming. Foragers expend time and energy to search
for prey among various food patches. Handling includes
the time and energy devoted to preparing the captured prey
for consumption. Finally, consumption allows the predator
to rebuild its stores of energy. Two important assumptions
underlie foraging theory: The currency assumption holds
that energy and time are the forager’s primary currency.
Thus, winning the survival game requires earning more of
these biological pennies than one spends. Currency is
earned by consuming prey, whereas currency is spent by
seeking and handling prey. The constraint assumption
holds that predators are constrained by their environment
and phylogenic endowment. The forager’s goal is survival;
an optimal forager survives by maximizing energy effi-
ciency (i.e., unit energy per unit time).
Pirolli and Card (1999) advanced information forag-
ing theory, a descriptive model suggesting that humans,
like other animals, forage to seek, collect, and consume
information in uncertain environments. Analogous to a
204
behavioral ecological account of foraging, humans are in-
formavores who attempt to maximize information gain
while minimizing the costs of obtaining it. Humans search
for information in various patches (e.g., journals, books,
colleagues), handle it (e.g., information processing), and
consume it (e.g., use information in task-relevant ways).
Foraging research has focused on two primary mod-
els. Prey models explore foragers’ decisions to capture
prey, whereas patch models investigate the searching for or
handling of prey. Prey and patch models offer two primary
insights that are relevant to intelligence analysis: Foragers
are risk sensitive and time sensitive when it comes to prey
consumption and patch time allocation.
Risk Insight 1: Foragers by default are risk
averse and seek low-hanging fruit. Because
they cannot consume all available prey in the environment,
foragers must be choosy. In the z-score model of risk
sensitivity (Stephens & Charnov, 1982), risky behaviors
are a function of the forager’s energy budget. Foragers with
an energy surplus are risk averse, choosing low-variance
prey whose quality is relatively known (e.g., a vetted
clandestine source). Foragers facing an energy deficit are
more likely to be risk seeking, choosing high-variance prey
whose quality is relatively unknown but potentially very
profitable or very unprofitable (e.g., a new clandestine
source). These tendencies are exacerbated as deadlines
draw near. The z-score model implies that the simplest way
to maintain an energy surplus is to expend as little energy
as possible by consuming easily captured prey. For in-
stance, Kerr (2008) attributed the IC’s failure to predict the
1979 fall of the Shah of Iran to an overreliance on “low-
hanging” sources too close to the regime (e.g., diplomats,
intelligence and military officers) rather than local unvetted
sources in the mosques and on the streets.
Risk Insight 2: Foragers sample patches.
Conventional wisdom suggests that foragers should spend
all their time in the richest patch. Yet Charnov’s (1976)
marginal value theorem predicts that when the instanta-
neous rate of gain in a patch falls below the average rate of
gain in all patches, foragers will leave the current patch to
sample a new one in order to minimize the risk of a sole
patch drying up. Consistent with operant psychology’s
matching law (Herrnstein, 1970), foragers will also distrib-
ute their time between patches in equilibrium to their
relative returns. Consider an intelligence analyst with ac-
cess to six classified databases. If there is an average across
all databases of one useful piece of information for every
10 minutes spent searching, she is likely to switch to
another database after 10 minutes without success. Though
most of her time will be spent in rich databases, matching
law predicts she will still sample less productive ones.
Time Insight 1: Foragers prefer prey that is
easy to handle. Prey consumption is a function of
handling time. Handling is the amount of time between
prey capture and consumption and does not guarantee
consumption; for example, a squirrel may drop an acorn on
the way to its feeding location. Thus, handling prey or
information is an inherently risky enterprise. Kagel and
Caraco (1986) offered time discounting as a foraging rule,
April 2012 ● American Psychologist
 arguing that items with shorter handling times are preferred
to those with longer handling times. The behavioral ecol-
ogy of consumption (Hantula, DiClemente, & Rajala, 2001)
views consumers as foragers and similarly advances delay
discounting (Green & Myerson, 2004) as the critical vari-
able. Online shopping studies have found a strong fit to a
hyperbolic decay function; shoppers were more likely to
spend time and purchase CDs online from stores with the
shortest delays to information about CD availability (Han-
tula et al., 2008). This modern foraging task shows that
human foragers are sensitive to delays to the consumption
of prey, which affects their consumption decisions.
Time Insight 2: Foragers stay longer in de-
pleting patches with lengthy travel times than
in those with short travel times. Travel time in
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foraging research is explained by the marginal value theo-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
rem. The average rate of return in the environment can be
simplified to a ratio of the sum of gains in the environment
to the total time (both residence and travel times). As travel
time falls in the denominator of this ratio, increasing travel
time leads to a lesser overall average rate of return. Owing
to this lower threshold, it takes longer for the instantaneous
rate of return of a patch to fall below this average rate—
thus leading to longer patch residence times. For example,
if gaining entry into a database is time-consuming, the
intelligence analyst described above might spend signifi-
cantly longer than 10 minutes in an unproductive database
before moving on. Empirical evidence supports this pre-
diction (Barrette, Boivin, Brodeur, & Giraldeau, 2010).
In sum, foraging theory highlights that decision pro-
cesses occur under time constraints, and these time con-
straints affect how one exploits information under risky
conditions. Empirical evidence finds that foragers are time
sensitive and risk sensitive. That is, instead of conducting
exhaustive information searches, foragers satisfice when
solving problems by consuming easily accessible informa-
tion from a variety of sources and moving on to other easily
accessible sources quickly (Fu & Pirolli, 2007; Hantula et
al., 2008). Intelligence analysts work in an information
world rife with too many, conflicting, and ambiguous
sources and must provide key insights under severe time
constraints. The empirical support underlying foraging the-
ory provides a strong foundation for a plausible IC foraging
theory, as summarized in Table 1, to describe optimal
analytic behavior. Empirical research is necessary to test
this IC foraging model.
Future Research Agenda
One goal of this article was to craft a preliminary research
agenda to expand the psychology of intelligence analysis.
Some questions informed by the reviewed literature are
presented below.
Do Intelligence Analysts Conform to
Naturalistic Decision Models?
As Kahneman and Klein (2009) suggested, feedback on the
quality of analytic products is necessary for intelligence
analysts to develop intuitive expertise. Research is needed
April 2012 ● American Psychologist
to understand the conditions under which analytic intuition
is skilled and trustworthy versus overconfident and faulty.
NDM’s emphasis on expert decision processes will unveil
themes for further quantitative research in intelligence
analysis. Hutchins et al. (2007) revealed some themes;
analysts’ refrains of information overload under time pres-
sure have pointed to the present article’s focus on infor-
mation foraging and group information use. Additional
naturalistic research will certainly drive the quantitative
research agenda further.
What Types of Information Do Intelligence
Analysts Consume?
Foragers tend to be risk averse and consume low-hanging
fruit unless they are particularly hungry. Thus, the IC
forager with sufficient insights may be likely to use more
easily interpretable information (e.g., solid intelligence
from credible sources) to develop reports rather than search
for difficult-to-interpret (but potentially more valuable) in-
formation. Yet analysts who are “hungry” for insight may
be more likely to be risk seeking and to use highly variable
information (e.g., less credible sources) to support a key
judgment as deadlines draw near. It is important to note
that using highly variable information to support a key
judgment looks similar to seeking only information that
confirms a preexisting hypothesis (i.e., confirmation bias).
Indeed, this risk-sensitive model of IC foraging might
explain the equivocal results in confirmation bias research.
It suggests that temporal dynamics are crucial when inves-
tigating confirmation bias. If what appears to be confirma-
tion bias increases with looming deadlines, perhaps ana-
lysts are risk-sensitive foragers instead of biased thinkers.
These insight surpluses and deficits may be concep-
tualized as analytic experience; more experienced analysts
presumably have many quality insights under their belts,
whereas novice analysts take more risks in developing
theories and building their brands, so to speak. Further,
until recently, analysts were not required to divulge the
sources supporting their key judgments; thus, policymakers
were unable to adequately differentiate between judgments
stemming from more reliable intelligence and those stem-
ming from highly variable sources.
Do Analytic Teams Share
Information Effectively?
Although key judgments and analytic products can be
individually driven, they are increasingly more often the
result of group discussions. In these cases, the information
sharing bias suggests that key judgments may be based on
a subset of available information rather than the larger pool
of information known to the group. Similarly, the bias may
factor into key judgments produced in interagency reports
such as PDBs or NIEs.
The information sharing bias tells us that individuals
overvalue information that is already known by other group
members; risk-sensitive foraging tells us what kind of
information individuals will collect. As foragers’ default
mechanism is to reach for low-hanging fruit, then intelli-
gence analysts are likely to individually collect bountiful
205
 Table 1
Analogues of Foraging Theory
Foraging theory Information foraging theory IC foraging theory

Animal forager/predator Human forager/informavore Analyst forager/informavore

Energy (E) Information (I) Key judgments/insights (J)

Time (T) Time (T) Time (T)

Survival equation ⫽ E/T Survival equation ⫽ I/T Survival equation ⫽ J/T

Patch Source of information Intelligence source (e.g., OSINT, SIGINT)

Clandestine source
Physical location of information Database
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Technological tool
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

Topic for report

IC agency
Expert source

Prey Information Intelligence data

Search Gather information Locate information source

Locate expert source
Locate background information
Assess intelligence credibility

Handle Process information Access data

Format data
Integrate data into hypotheses
Develop theories
Test hypotheses
Share information

Consume Use information in task-relevant ways Use intelligence for key judgments in reports
Note. Foraging theory is adapted from Stephens, Brown, and Ydenberg (2007), and information foraging theory is adapted from Pirolli and Card (1999). IC ⫽
intelligence community; OSINT ⫽ open source intelligence; SIGINT ⫽ signals intelligence.

“low-hanging” information. This implies that many ana-
lysts will hold the same information. The information shar-
ing bias might then drive them to overvalue this shared
information in group discussions. In other words, key judg-
ments for policymakers might disproportionately be based
on a small subset of easily interpretable intelligence. This
prediction is consistent with recent observations that IC
reports often provide overlapping information, significantly
increasing the volume of reports without proportionally
increasing their utility to policymakers (R. Immerman,
cited in Priest & Arkin, 2010).
Do Intelligence Analysts Diversify Their
Information Sources Effectively?
Patch sampling is a robust finding in foraging research.
Within the IC, patches may be conceptualized as databases,
types of intelligence (e.g., HUMINT, SIGINT), different
clandestine sources, or even different agencies. Foraging
research predicts that intelligence analysts sample patches
by using intelligence from a variety of sources rather than
basing an entire judgment on one or a few sources. Yet our
review suggests that when there are barriers between
sources, analysts will diversify their information sources
less. Essentially, barriers lead to too much time spent with
too few sources.
Numerous incompatible technological systems exist
in the IC. Former National Counterterrorism Center Direc-
tor Michael Leiter admitted that he spent much of his time
switching between four computer monitors and six hard
drives on his desk, most of which fed into incompatible
networks, and that it was a “big deal” that all of his e-mail
was finally on one computer after over three years as the
director of the center (Priest & Arkin, 2010). We do not,
thus far, have empirical evidence that these between-patch
barriers adversely affect patch residence time in the IC, but
admissions such as these from major IC leaders certainly
beg the question. Further, with information sharing being a
much-touted IC goal (ODNI, 2008), a closer look at how

206 April 2012 ● American Psychologist

 these types of barriers affect interagency information flow
is necessary.
General Discussion
The IC’s Analytic Transformation movement is primed for
psychology to lend its voice to improving the quality of
intelligence analysis. Traditional JDM serves as a begin-
ning; NDM’s qualitative fieldwork offers insight into the
challenging information world of intelligence analysis. In-
formation foraging theory advances the idea that intelli-
gence analysts may be viewed as informavores who use
adaptive strategies to form key judgments efficiently, and
research on group decision making posits that group pro-
cesses are often dependent on the distribution of informa-
tion within the group. These empirical findings can better
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inform intelligence processes at a time when the IC is
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
perceived to be in deep trouble. Though our preliminary
research agenda offers a foundation for a meaningful dia-
logue between psychologists and the IC, three methodolog-
ical obstacles are highlighted:
1. Lack of time. Analysts’ severe time constraints
cannot be overestimated. As time is a precious commodity,
conducting analysis, as opposed to participating in research
or using lengthy techniques, is perceived to be the more
suitable time expenditure (Johnston, 2005). For example,
though argument mapping is an empirically supported
method for improving critical thinking (van Gelder, Bissett,
& Cumming, 2004), analysts resist employing such a
lengthy, structured analytic technique.
2. Resistance to empiricism. Relying exclusively on
empirically supported strategies to inform IC analytic tra-
decraft has mixed reviews. Some IC leaders call for such
scientific rigor (Rieber & Thomason, 2005), whereas others
are skeptical of its utility.
If you are trying to change analysts’ behavior, which has to be the
goal of such research, you are starting with at least one strike
against you, as much of your target audience already has a firm
opinion, based on their personal experience that they believe is
more trustworthy than your research. (Heuer, 2009, p. 5)
3. Politicization of intelligence. Experts are concerned
that if intelligence analysts are pressured to frame intelli-
gence to support policymaker preferences, this will be a
barrier to intelligence reform (George & Bruce, 2008;
Lowenthal, 2009), though the extent of the problem is
unclear. Tetlock and Mellers (2011) provided a detailed
agenda centered on psychological research to overcome
possible politicization in the IC.
These perceived barriers should not stop psychology
from taking on the Analytic Transformation as its next
grand challenge. Though some IC leaders have been un-
successful in their push to include psychological findings in
analytic methodology, these cultural barriers can be coun-
tered if psychologists make a concerted effort to build a
rigorous science around the psychology of intelligence
analysis and demonstrate how and why psychology im-
proves analytic practices, as Loftus (2011) and Tetlock and
Mellers (2011) have done. We offer several recommenda-
tions.
April 2012 ● American Psychologist
Recommendation 1: Design Externally
Valid Studies
Questions about the transferability of findings from studies
of novice decision making to experts implore researchers of
intelligence analysis to study intelligence analysts directly.
Though working with analysts in the IC may be logistically
challenging, other options exist. For example, recruiting
retired intelligence analysts and current intelligence ana-
lysts enrolled in advanced degree programs would lead to
results that are transferable to the IC. Still, research on
group decision making serves as a reminder that it may be
unwise to assume that individual decision making general-
izes to group decision making. Specifically investigating
different units of analysis (e.g., individual, group, agency)
can illuminate the differential processes interacting with
one another in the IC. Indeed, Heuer and Pherson (2011)
conceded that this type of translational research offers a
new way forward for assessing analytic processes in the IC.
Following the lead of NDM and foraging research,
analog studies using small samples, simulations, and mul-
tiple methods will be more pragmatic and relevant to the
IC. In addition, research aimed at improving analytic meth-
odology must measure all relevant dependent variables.
Prey consumption and patch sampling in information for-
aging, information sharing in group decision research, and
naturalistic decision research all remind us that the deci-
sion-making process is just as important to measure as the
ultimate product. To this end, dependent variables should
extend beyond accuracy of performance to include other
measures of quality, such as choosing relevant information
or efficiency in decision processes.
Recommendation 2: Disseminate Research in
the Scientific Community and Beyond
Organizing conferences and publishing research specifi-
cally on intelligence analysis are essential to building the
research program. Conferences dedicated to the psychol-
ogy of intelligence analysis offer a networking space to
develop expertise in this area. Publishing in psychology
journals as well as intelligence studies journals (e.g., Intel-
ligence and National Security, International Journal of
Intelligence and Counterintelligence) as well as general
interest publications further develops a theoretical founda-
tion and increases the profile of this important application
of psychology. Indeed, former IC leaders’ (e.g., Heuer,
1999) pervasive focus on confirmation bias may be due
more to its recognition outside of psychology than to em-
pirical evidence of it in the IC.
Recommendation 3: Collaborate With the
Intelligence Community
A recent collaboration between the National Research
Council and the IC, Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow:
Advances From the Behavioral and Social Sciences (Na-
tional Research Council, 2011), is promising. Psycholo-
gists comprised half of the National Research Council’s
Committee on Behavioral and Social Science Research to
Improve Intelligence Analysis for National Security and
207
 offered a framework for how psychology may be applied in
the IC. Psychologists can propose and seek IC funding for
studies stemming from such recommendations. There is
progress toward this goal of research in the IC. ODNI’s
Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity is cur-
rently conducting a study on forecasting strategies (http://
forecastwe.org/) based on psychological research (Arm-
strong, 2005; Tetlock, 2005). Moreover, ODNI’s Office of
Analytic Integrity and Standards, as well as its Open
Source Center, have organized conferences with IC per-
sonnel and academic experts in the past, and psychologists
can work through these avenues to engage in IC research
projects.
In addition to engaging in research projects, psychol-
ogists might use their expertise to provide consultation
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services. The National Intelligence Council has a history of
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
consulting with eminent psychologists, and psychologists
consult with the IC in areas ranging from dynamic organi-
zational processes (Baughman & Dorsey, 2009) to analytic
methodology. Psychologists with varied backgrounds and
research expertise would have a significant impact as con-
sultants to analytic agencies, entrenching analytic method-
ology more deeply in decision research.
Recommendation 4: Centralize Intelligence
Community Research
It is worth considering a longer range goal of establishing
a centralized IC research institution. An in-house institu-
tion may include participants who are expected to imple-
ment the findings (Heuer, 2009); however such an arrange-
ment may discourage external collaboration. An alternative
may be an independent scientific research institution akin
to the National Institutes of Health (Rieber & Thomason,
2005). However, such an institution would have to be
created from the ground up. Perhaps a more successful
approach that psychologists can influence more directly
may be to rely on the National Science Foundation’s (NSF)
proven expertise and establish an Intelligence Research
branch of NSF’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral and
Economic Sciences. This branch could become a clearing-
house for all research relevant to intelligence analysis.
Information foraging theory suggests that this type of clear-
inghouse could reduce between-patch time and therefore
facilitate the application of empirical research in the long
run.
Recommendation 5: Employ Research From
Other Areas of Psychology
Our present focus on decision-making research is a start to
understanding intelligence analysis. Recent work in polit-
ical psychology offers additional insights into analytic pro-
cesses. For example, Lodge and Taber’s (2005) research on
hot cognition argued that affect is activated automatically
when one views political information, leading to biased
information processing—though Valentino, Hutchings,
Banks, and Davis (2008) have suggested that anxiety may
actually promote information seeking in some cases. Fur-
ther, Lau and Redlawsk’s (2001) process tracing method-
ology offers a technique to examine how participants
208
search for information in real time, which may lead to
insights on how they make sense of their dynamic infor-
mation environment.
Although this article has focused on improving deci-
sion making, the fact that analysts work in the context of
complex organizations should not be ignored. Advances in
industrial– organizational (I–O) psychology will be very
helpful in the Analytic Transformation. Two current IC
challenges that I–O research can address well are perfor-
mance management/pay issues and virtual teaming. The IC
has struggled with performance management and pay for
nearly a decade (Losey, 2010), an issue that recent I–O
scholarship casts in a new light (Pulakos & O’Leary, 2011).
Given the rapid rise of technological tools, virtual collab-
oration will become more common in the IC. Virtual work
differs from face-to-face collaboration in many important
respects and presents challenges that I–O research is poised
to handle (DeRosa & Lepsinger, 2010).
Armed with theories and empirical techniques, psy-
chology has a voice worthy of consideration in the national
discourse on intelligence analytic methods and policy. The
veritable explosion of decision research in the past decade
requires a renewed focus on psychology’s contribution to
analytic tradecraft and reinforces the critical need for psy-
chologists to have a seat at the table. By highlighting
challenges faced by humans in a risky and uncertain infor-
mation world, research programs on decision making and
information use undergird intelligence analysis and offer
empirically supported strategies for keeping our nation
safe, rather than pointing a finger at analysts who fail to
“connect the dots.” Indeed, in the present article we argue
that analytic reform may best be accomplished by viewing
intelligence analysts as adaptive thinkers rather than irra-
tional information processors.
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