Heuristic traps & human error in decision-making: best education/awareness practices?

Hi MP,

I'm working on developing a short (≈2 hour) seminar on heuristic traps, cognitive biases, and other human factors that influence decision-making in the mountains (including but not limited to climbing, skiing, hiking, and mountaineering). The rationale behind the session is that while we often talk about the technical factors that contribute to accidents and near misses, we less frequently dedicate attention to the human factors that sometimes lead us to take risks that lie outside our personal or group risk tolerances. By discussing the latter, we hope to help people to notice these cognitive traps when they arise and to be better equipped with concrete strategies to avoid such biases detrimentally affecting decision-making.

I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on best practices in developing education/awareness around these topics! For instance, to what extent do you find discussion of case studies useful? Discussion of participants' own experiences? Mock scenarios? Theoretical discussion of types of biases and reasons we fall into them? What kinds of strategies for mitigating the risk of such human error have you found most helpful to teach, and how did you teach them?

Some resources we've found to draw on so far:

Web:
Collection of relevant articles from avalanche education perspective on Snowpit.com
"Heuristic Traps in Recreational Avalanche Accidents" - statistical study of the role of heuristic traps in avalanche terrain from Avalanche News (PDF)
Summary/discussion of the above study by the Association for Psychological Science
Counteracting Heuristic Traps from Spark
“Four Steps to Overcome Human Traps” from Backcountry Magazine
Discussion of the familiarity trap in the context of ice climbing & guiding
“Lessons from Everest” - article oriented to business studies community on the 1996 Everest disaster, including discussion of cognitive biases and group decision-making
ANAM

Books:
The Art of Thinking Clearly
Predictably Irrational

TIA (and, of course, YGD)!

Achieving wisdom by reading every edition of Accidents in North American Climbing from the AAC is how I manage.
 
I am blessed with excellent navigational skill and a good sense of situational awareness.  In order to avoid trouble, I start small with any new partners and work up slowly to more challenging environments.  I then draw the line if I find a partner insists on bad judgement calls.  
 
I don't know how much you can actually help dumb people to be smart.  Lots of training doesn't hurt.  Some people are clumsy, and others are unlucky.  I've heard several tales of avalanche experts dying in avalanches for example.
 
 As a great poet once said, "Your wise men don't know what it's like, to be thick as a brick."

Maybe trawl a SAR forum. I'd guess someone has presented on this at a conference somewhere. Marketing has researched our predictable weirdness in making "rational" decisions also, probably more than any one else out there

Sounds fun! Helen

EDIT to add, Spider, there is something disturbing about "Los Angeles, ID", lol!

 

https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555 

Josh Rappoport wrote: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/magazine/avalanche-school-heidi-julavits.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276452885_Human_Factors_in_High-Altitude_Mountaineering

https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555

And this: mountainproject.com/forum/t…;

bc skiing i've tried to adopt the 'strategic mindset' as laid out by roger atkins.  it a framework meant to set a course for a day and hopefully pre-bias against some of the traps out there.

in print:
https://arc.lib.montana.edu//snow-science/objects/ISSW14_paper_O9.02.pdf

in podcast: 
https://soundcloud.com/user-23585762/the-avalanche-hour-podcast-episode-319-roger-atkins

Ice climbing>this thread.

I like Bruce Tremper’s “Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain” and his discussion of the human factor for this topic. 

At work I recommend https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt 

I liked Danny Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow because, while it doesn’t address climbing  or mountaineering directly, it covers many biases humans are susceptible to and really drives home the point of ever-present heuristics driving behavior. It’s important that people understand the limitations of the human mind and recognize everyone is susceptible to possibly dangerous heuristics, not just “dumb people” or “noobs”.

Coincidentally, there's a "Penn Science Cafe" lecture by Sudeep Bhatia on Tues, Jan 28th entitled "Risky Choice: Paradoxes of Rationality and Behavior." Teaser:

How should we make choices in the face of uncertainty? Philosophers and mathematicians have studied this question for centuries, yet we are only now starting to understand how people behave when exposed to risk. This talk will examine the rationality and irrationality inherent in risky choice, and, through the lens of two “paradoxes,” develop a psychological theory capable of describing the nuances of human behavior.

Here's a LINK to the event.

Andy Wiesner wrote: I like Bruce Tremper’s “Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain” and his discussion of the human factor for this topic. 

Good stuff here.  Plenty for 2 hours worth.  Make sure to include discussion of group dynamics/decision making (or lack thereof).