Evaluation of Risk Shift Between Individuals and Teams in an Operational Task

This study sought to find a polarized risk shift between individual risk decisions and team risk decisions in an operational task. Risk shift theory has been explored in behavioral psychology and teamwork literature and is defined as the propensity of teams to make riskier decisions when compared to individuals. However, the findings from previous work were based on participant responses to hypothetical, abstract thought problems. These previous tasks lacked attributes present in an operational domain, including complexity, accountability, realism, and measurable risk. This study sought to bridge this gap by investigating whether this risk shift phenomena occurs in an operational task. Humans often work in teams in these domains, and increasingly, humans are also working with agents. Thus, an evaluation was done to first establish the existence of risk shift in human-only teams in an operational setting. The study had one independent variable: decision-maker with two levels, individual and team. The task design involved an aviation dispatch task, where participants simulated the role of a flight dispatcher. Participants were responsible to make dispatch decisions on whether to divert, hold, or send 25 airplanes, while weighing the potential consequences of incurring policy violations based on the possibility of an approaching storm. Results from the study showed the absolute value of the shift was significantly different than zero. Additionally, a thematic analysis found that groups varied in their decision-making strategies, using approaches like deferring to an influential teammate, averaging decisions amongst teammates, and collaborating to come to a new team decision. Establishing operational HHT risk shift in a realistic scenario provides the foundation for future experiments to examine how humans and autonomous agents perform teaming tasks in dynamic contexts involving risk.