Stress and the Measurement of Task Performance. I. Decision Making in Complex Tasks.
Abstract
The development of an overall theory of stress has been hindered by a lack of comparability among research efforts in terms of the tasks utilized, the performance criteria measured, and the measurment techniques appliled. In a step toward facilitating research in a complex, as well as some simple settings which can be used to develop an overall theory of stress, this report presents a set of decision making measures which can be applied in a wide variety of experimental and applied situations. Based on Complexity Theory, nine categories of decision making styles are described: The low unidimensional decision maker, the normal unidimensional decision maker, the general differentiator, the closed hierarchical differentiator, the excessive differentiator, the low level integrator, the high level integrator, the closed hierarchical integrator, and the non-closing integrator. Ten different decision measures are defined and formulas for their calculation are presented: Decision categories, spread across decision categories, number of decisions, number of integrations, Quality of Integrated Strategies (QIS), number or respondent decisions, characteristic response and response speed to information, quality (if immediate response is required), quality (if novel strategy is required) and quality (if learned pre-established strategy is required). For each of the decision making styles, predictions are made about performance on each of the ten decision measures. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1981
- Accession Number
- ADA100342
Entities
People
- Siegfried Streufert
- Susan C. Streufert
Organizations
- Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center