METACOGNITIVE DECISION MAKING IN OIL SPILL RESPONSE-BEHAVIORAL BIAS IN RELATION TO PERCEIVED RISK
ABSTRACT 2017-205 Catastrophic events like Deepwater Horizon, Exxon Valdez, major hurricanes, and other such anomalies have a tendency to overwhelm the initial crisis management leadership due to the chaotic nature of the event. The inability to quickly and accurately make critical assessments about the magnitude and complexity of the emerging catastrophe can spell disaster for crisis managers long before the response ever truly takes shape. This paper argues for the application of metacognitive models for sense and decision-making. Rather than providing tools and checklists as a recipe for success, this paper endeavors to provide awareness of the cognitive processes and heuristics that tend to emerge in crises including major oil spills, making emergency managers aware of their existence and potential impacts. Awareness, we argue, leads to recognition and self-awareness of key behavioral patterns and biases. The skill of metacognition—thinking about thinking—is what we endeavor to build through this work. Using a literature review and cogent application to oil spill response, this paper reviews contemporary theories on metacognition and sense-making, as well as concepts of behavioral bias and risk perception in catastrophic environments. When catastrophe occurs—and history has proven they will—the incident itself and the external pressures of its perceived management arguably emerge simultaneously, but not necessarily in tandem with one another. Previous spills have demonstrated how a mismanaged incident can result in an unwieldy and caustic confluence of external forces. This paper provides an awareness of biases that lead to mismanagement and apply for the first time a summary of concepts of sense-making and metacognition to major oil spill response. The views and ideas expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Coast Guard or Department of Homeland Security.