The impact of accountability on motivational goals and the quality of advice provided in crisis negotiations.

Abstract

This study investigated the impact of accountability on motivation for self-preservation and the quality of advice provided by negotiator advisors in a simulated suicide intervention. Accountability was manipulated across five sequential developments by increasing risk to lives and level of involvement in terms of tailoring advice to the situation. Seventy-seven police officers acted as negotiator advisors and rated their own perceived levels of accountability and motivational priorities regarding saving lives or self-preservation (protecting self from negative evaluation) at each point. At early stages within the incident, accountability was at its lowest point and was positively correlated with motivation to save lives. At latter stages (after a fatality), accountability was significantly elevated and significantly positively correlated with motivation for self-preservation. Further, at latter stages of the incident, accountability was negatively correlated with effective discrimination between relevant and irrelevant information (measured against a “gold standard” conducted with a panel of expert negotiators in the absence of time pressure). Thus, as perceived accountability increased, effective discrimination decreased. Findings indicate that especially high levels of accountability may hinder performance by compromising advisors' effectiveness in discriminating between relevant and irrelevant information. This may be a function of accountability encouraging the use of cognitively complex strategies, leading to an increase in cognitive load. The practical and theoretical implications of this are discussed.

Decision inertia: Deciding between least worst outcomes in emergency responses to disasters

“…When a decision is not constrained to deadlines, this means that decision-makers have the opportunity to avoid or redundantly deliberate on their choice. When decisions are perceived to be difficult, then individuals will try to avoid committing to a course of action (van den Heuvel et al, 2012) in order to avoid anticipated negative consequences such as negative emotions (Anderson, 2003), and when operating within organizational settings, the potential for criticism is due to accountability (Waring, Alison, Cunningham, & Whitfield, 2013). When someone expects to receive feedback on their actions in teambased settings, they will tend to avoid choice (Zeelenberg & van Dijk, 1997) due to the potential for anticipated loss (Crotty & Thompson, 2009), the anticipation of blame (Eyre et al, 2008), or the perceived inability to personally justify their choice (Brooks, 2011).…”

Offence or defence? Approach and avoid goals in the multi‐agency emergency response to a simulated terrorism attack

“…This occurs as decision makers are focussed on the potentially negative consequences that might arise from their behaviour and so struggle to perform or commit to an action (Corr, DeYoung, & McNaughton, 2013). In a simulated police investigation, officers struggled to discriminate between relevant and irrelevant information and performed more poorly when they were concerned about being held to account to poor decision-making (i.e., avoidance goal) (Waring, Alison, Cunningham, & Whitfield, 2013). Officers performed worse as they were preoccupied by 'defensive' goals to protect themselves (i.e., avoiding negative accountability).…”

Analyzing Decision Logs to Understand Decision Making in Serious Crime Investigations

“…We cannot know whether officers generated more hypotheses than they actually documented. Accountability and self-preservation may have hindered the documentation of hypotheses (see Waring, Alison, Cunningham, & Whitfield, 2013), or it may be that less experienced officers were simply more cautious about documentation despite conceiving of multiple hypotheses so that they would not appear uncertain or naïve. Yet, their training makes very clear that they should both generate and document alternative hypotheses.…”