Psychological Transmission And Crisis Decision Making

The research question that this thesis expects to study lies in: through what kind of “transmission mechanism” can the psychological factors or elements affect decision makers’ ultimate behavior in the process of crisis reaction and significant strategic decision-making?“Crisis” usually refers to,in the context of international relations,the critical turning point between war and peace and therefore the term of “crisis decision-making” under this circumstance is explained generally as the decision making process conducted by those decision makers to address crisis based on their goals,available resources and measures in the state of crisis.However,the real questions in this are as follow: what psychological factors on earth push decision makers to take such measures? How do these factors influence the final decisions of those decision makers through some sort of transmission mechanism? What is more,how are the misperceptions exist in individuals and group decision-making mechanisms on the foundation of individual collection amplified and expected to lead to some further decision makings through some kind of psychological transmission mechanism in some extreme and vital conditions? Keeping those in mind,this thesis’ s research object is hence the connections and transmission mechanism between psychological factors and decision-making behavior,especially those in the state of crisis.This thesis believes that,during the process of crisis decision making,the decision makers possess some common and basic psychological factors such as fear,anger,rationality,the pursuit of prestige and honor,which consist the first level of psychological form(also known as “the primary psychologies”).In the crisis state,the decision makers need to transfer those “primary psychologies” into the second level of psychological form(also known as “the secondary psychologies”)such as caution and restriction,mutual trust and other factors in order to address the crisis situation swiftly.Within this process,the decision makers should try their best to balance the ratios of these different psychological elements in accordance with the goal and purpose that their country wants to achieve in this crisis so that the best final decision could be made.Therefore,this process can be understood as the making of psychological transmission mechanism,or “primary psychologies → secondary psychologies → decision making behaviors”.The establishment of this psychological transmission mechanism relies on three basic hypotheses.First of all,at the individual level,the decision makers of a country tend to generate some misperceptions toward the current situation and the intention of the opposite side under uncertain circumstance so that such misperceptions usually exaggerate others’ hostility and make the decision makers of a country to view other countries as rivals with full intention of conflict.This thesis argues that the “wishful thinking” in the misperceptions can influence the psychology of the decision makers greatly during the process of crisis and even strategic decision making so that some specific psychological forms of the “primary psychologies” can be affected quite a lot and the final decision behaviors can also be shaped significantly through the psychological transmission mechanism.Secondly,at the collective level,the decision makers tend to chose some kind of “small group” decision making mechanism in order to meet the demand of making decisions quickly under pressure and keeping secret.Hence,this thesis thinks that the “groupthink” becomes the amplifier of those “misperceptions” and the critical part of the transmission from the “primary psychologies” to the “secondary psychologies”.Last but not least,the “primary” and “secondary” psychologies of those decision makers can only work via signaling and opinion expression after the procedure of psychological transmission.Therefore,this thesis argues that after the decision behavior is conducted,a country should project two kinds of signals – deterrence signal and sincerity signal – to the opposite side in order to let the other know your final decisions.Given this situation,the Cuban Missile Crisis,one of the most classical international crises occurred in the period of Cold War,is therefore selected as the object of case study in this thesis in order to analyze the crisis interactions between decision makers of both American and Soviet sides.By establishing a theoretical framework,this thesis would like to clarify the four necessary conditions or phases of process of the formation and development of crisis firstly,which are: 1.General internal and external environment and circumstance that countries face;2.The goals and interests that countries possess under this kind of environment;3.The available measures or methods that countries have to achieve those goals and interests;and 4.Countries’ decision making mechanisms or regimes.Above all,the key finding of this thesis is to study the procedure of crisis management and the psychological factors rooted deeply in those interactions based on the construction of the model of “psychological transmission mechanism of crisis decision-making”.This thesis proposes that as the two fundamental psychological factors for states’ diplomatic crisis management decision-making,“fear” and “rationality” constitute the first psychological level of this transmission mechanism with big powers’ security responsibilities toward small powers.Then they are transmitted into “caution & restraint” and “mutual trust” as the second psychological level of this mechanism so that the crisis management would be fulfilled.In the end,several relevant principles of diplomatic crisis management decision-making are thus concluded on the base of these analyses.