Leadership Decision Making

愤怒会使人们对风险的看法产生偏差，而风险会从根本上塑造领导者的形象？最关键的决定。在一项早期实验中，PI发现，与处于中性情绪状态的人相比，感到愤怒的人倾向于从事风险更高的行为。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对现实世界行为的影响。该团队将研究愤怒是否会引发乐观的反应，即使在衡量真实行为的时候，真金白银岌岌可危，愤怒的人与处于中立状态的人进行比较。PI还将采访我们的领导者-参与者，以了解他们以不那么结构化的形式进行决策的情况。作为一个例子，计划中的一个实验将检查领导者对长期目标和战略的坚持程度，而不是被当前突出的信息分散注意力。具体地说，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短期和临时解决方案上、以牺牲长期和永久利益为代价的倾向。她预测，与中立参与者相比，愤怒的参与者将如此专注于赢得战斗，以至于他们最终将输掉这场战争。她还预测，与那些对短期决策负责的人相比，只对最终结果负责的愤怒参与者将采取更长期的策略，而没有责任的愤怒参与者将落在中间。这些结果将被用来教育领导人和公众，让他们知道愤怒可能会如何影响他们最危险和最重要的决策。

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.