Leadership Decision Making

愤怒会影响对风险的认知，从而从根本上塑造领导者？最关键的决定。在早期的一项实验中，PI发现，与处于中性情绪状态的人相比，感到愤怒的人往往会做出更冒险的行为。在发现冒险行为和愤怒之间的这种联系之后，PI将通过比较普通人群和精英领导人参与者的行为来更深入地探索这种影响。代表政府、军队、非政府组织和公司的大量不同样本的高层决策者将参与一系列程序性实验。同时收集生物、行为、认知和情感数据将使研究团队能够得出现实世界行为的含义。研究小组将研究愤怒是否会引发乐观反应，即使是在真实的行为被衡量、真正的金钱受到威胁、愤怒的人与处于中立状态的人进行比较的情况下。PI还将采访我们的领导参与者，以一种不那么结构化的形式了解他们的决策。例如，计划中的实验之一将检验领导者坚持长期目标和战略的程度，而不是被当前的重要信息分散注意力。具体来说，PI将研究愤怒和问责是否以及如何影响将太多资源集中在立即的、暂时的解决方案上，而牺牲长期的、永久的收益的倾向。她预测，与中立的参与者相比，愤怒的参与者将更加专注于赢得战斗，最终他们将输掉战争。她还预测，那些只对最终结果负责的愤怒参与者会比那些对短期决策负责的人采取更长期的策略，而那些不负责的愤怒参与者则会处于中间状态。调查结果将用于教育领导人和公众，让他们了解愤怒会如何影响他们最危险、最重要的决定。

Anger biases perceptions of risk, which can fundamentally shape leaders? most critical decisions. In one early experiment, the PI found that individuals who felt angry tended to engage in riskier behaviors than did individuals in a neutral emotional state. Having discovered this connection between risk-taking behavior and anger, the PI will explore the effect more deeply by comparing the behavior of participants from the general population to those of elite leaders.The large, diverse sample of high-level decision makers - representing governments, militaries, non-governmental organizations, and corporations will participate in a series of programmatic experiments. Simultaneously collecting biological, behavioral, cognitive, and emotional data will allow the research team to draw implications for real-world behavior. the team will examine whether anger triggers optimistic responses even when real behavior is measured, real money is at stake, and angry people are compared to those in a neutral state. The PI will also interview our leader-participants to learn about their decision making in a less structured format.As an example, one of the planned experiments will examine the degree to which leaders adhere to long-term goals and strategies rather than being distracted by presently salient information. Specifically, the PI will study whether and how anger and accountability affect the tendency to focus too many resources on an immediate, temporary solution at the cost of a long-term, permanent gain. She predicts that angry participants, as compared to neutral participants, will focus so much on winning battles that they will ultimately lose the war. She also predicts that angry participants who are accountable only for their end result will take a more long-term strategy than those accountable for short-term decisions, while angry participants who have no accountability will fall in the middle. The results will be used to educate leaders and the public about how anger may affect their most risky and important decisions.