Cascading Failure in Judgment - How to Break The Cycle?

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Lately, I've been reading stories of self-defense as well as stories of "I survived" type (or watching one of the various shows on cable that cover both scenarios). In many of these stories, I often note that the person involved makes what can charitably be called "poor judgment" which leads to higher stress and the need for faster decision making which in turn causes them to make another bad judgment, etc.

It was my perception that in many of these situations, the person has multiple opportunities to bypass the incident (survival or self-defense) and they choose the wrong path repeatedly. And looking at bad outcomes I've had myself I can certainly see a wide path of stupid choices on my part where I had plenty of opportunity to turn away.

Thinking about this, it made me think that a critical skill for survival in any situation may be just to realize when you've made a bad decision, take a deep breath and stop rushing yourself through worse and worse decisions.

So I thought it might be worthwhile (and we'll see how that judgment pans out) to start a thread discussing:

1. How do you recognize when you are in that cycle?
2. What do you do to break out of it once you recognize it?

 

[cassandrasdaddy]

often a key is the feeling that "i must do something!"

often the best thing to do is nothing

 

[JRH6856]

It has been my general observation that breaking out of a bad decision cycle does not make for good TV, either scripted or reality (or even scripted reality).

often the best thing to do is nothing

Breaking out of a bad decision cycle is difficult, because you may not have time to realize your are in one until it is too late. The best option is to avoid getting in such a cycle to begin with. Failing that, recognizing it early enough to get out of it. Both require situational awareness to recognize the danger of a developing situation and the mindset to not get involved.

If avoiding involvement is not an option, visualization, training and practice can help one avoid a bad decision path, but there are some people who can't help being who they are and they are going to go down that path regardless. Such a person is generally called "victim", but sometimes they are called "gunman" or "shooter".

 

[9mmepiphany]

often a key is the feeling that "i must do something!"

often the best thing to do is nothing

This closely parallels my experience in seeing situations quickly deteriorate.

It seems hard for folks to accept, once they have decided to get involved, that things are beyond their ability to fix/handle...they become invested. Then it becomes a matter of ego.

They become unable to dis-engage

 

[leadaddict]

I think the physical and mental tunnel vision that is induced by stress and adrenaline affects this a lot. If you aren't taking in all the facts and/or processing them correctly you will make bad choices. Stress and adrenaline are not easy things for most of us to train for.

 

[Averageman]

When my decison making process get compressed and I am reacting to something rather than thinking then acting, I know it's time to slow down.
When voices become louder than necassary for conversation, I know it's time to think first rather than speak first.
When I feel that I've reached the end of what a conversation will fix, I walk away.
No matter how angry the other guy makes you only you can make yourself his fool.

 

[Loosedhorse]

We are well into the "deadly days" here in New England. The weather is good enough to go hiking, and cold enough to kill you.

I don't know if it's called denial or stubborness or pride, but a refusal to recognize YOU MUST change you plans is a dangerous thing. If you get lost, or it starts to rain hard or get dark, maybe it's time to stop hiking and think about shelter.

Similarly, if you've driving to the late-night convenience store, but there are two scary guys outside, maybe it's time to forget about the milk you were going to buy, and keep driving.

 

[Sam1911]

1. How do you recognize when you are in that cycle?

I tend to think of this a similar to accidentally dropping a knife or a gun. There's a split second where you could correct the fault instinctively and get back on track. But that's a minute fraction of time. Once some threshold is reached, nothing you do to directly try to reverse course is safe or at all likely to succeed and you need to fall back on getting out of the way and protecting yourself.

We're all used to making subtle course corrections constantly, and without even thinking about it. Learning to instantly recognize and react to passing that point-of-no-return threshold is the real trick.

What do you do to break out of it once you recognize it?

Some of the things I've read recommend coming up with a one-size-fits-most standard emergency action. Something that is unexpected and powerful and which does not look like any of the standard reactions the average person might have to sudden assaults, impacts, contact, etc. Might be a gross-motor strike to the rear if anything unexpected snags you from behind, for example. Or it could be something more dissuasive rather than aggressive -- like shouting/yelling loudly which is unexpected and disorienting and calls attention. Whatever it is, it isn't likely to be the perfect response, but it is immediate, unhesitating, strong, and unexpected. All of which are better than the perfect plan identified several moments too late.

I believe it was Napoleon who said that one of the keys to war was to steadfastly refuse to do what the enemy was trying to get you to do, at all costs. But that requires insight and analysis of an attacker's goals which you might not have time to execute.

 

[Owen Sparks]

Most people outside gun forums don't have the 'combat mindset', especially movie directors. It has gotten to the point that my wife will not watch an action adventure film with me because I keep telling her what the charicters should do. We saw one the other night where a the villan chased some woman through her house and she ran into the bathroom and locked the door. She just cringed in the corner and screamed while he broke the door down. All she had to do was take the heavy porcilin lid off the toilet tank and stand beside the door out of sight with it over her head and brain the bad guy when he came in. I hate it when people don't think.

 

[308win]

I believe there are two general types of senarios; one, you are in control and two, you are not in control and have little recourse except reacting.

If you are in senario two you may have limited options other than to continue to react until you either gain control, reach a critical point of failure, or can disengage. If you can disengage you may have acheived a senario one position.

If you are in the first senario and continue to make bad decisions others have already identified the reasons, i.e., ego, folly, stubborness, etc. and the worse - a bad read of your position or over-estimating your capabilites.

As far as recognizing when you are in a cycle of bad decisions, if you are not deceiving yourself you should recognize that you need to change your tactics unless your ego, etc. are clouding your judgement. Until you have accepted that what you are doing isn't working you probably aren't going to change course.

 

[Kingcreek]

I just finished reading Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales for the 3rd time. He does a great job of analyzing the mental response to emergency situations.

 

[gtd]

S.T.O.P.

From the Boy Scouts of America Wilderness Survival training courses:

S - Stop

T - Think

O - Observe

P - Plan

In other words, train yourself to think before you act. Don't react out of ignorance. Take a few minutes to sit down, relax, look around, think about what's going on around you, and carefully plan a resolution.

In Cub Scouts (the younger boys) it's simplified as "hug a tree," which means that if everyone is looking for everyone, no one is sitting still long enough to be found. If you don't know where you are, and you don't know how to get to where you want to be, just stop! Let someone who does know a few things find you.

Learn to take a deep breath and assess the situation before acting, and keep repeating each time the situation changes a little.

Whether it's minutes or seconds, the STOP method applies, and it is something that can be drilled, even if only as a mental exercise. Don't act before you think.

 

[CWL]

I think that trusting one's gut feelings is important.

Pretty-much every time I did anything that had bad consequences, something in my gut was warning me to "don't do this!", but which I ignored, or rationalized through and did anyways.

The good thing about getting older, is that you learn to trust the "gut", but you have to first survive your younger years to get to this point.

Deep Survival, as posted above is a good book that talks about this.

 

[JAshley73]

This thread gives me a chance to share a close-call I once had, as well as evaluate what I could have done differently, and give us a chance to apply your questions.

A few years ago my girlfriend (now wife) and I were leaving a bar in a busy, but generally nicer part of town. Both of us were sober at the time of leaving, but were forced to walk through an alley to the parking lot where my truck was parked. On our way through the alley, there were two guys and a girl walking in front of us, acting unruly and yelling what seemed to be silly but harmelss stuff as they walked. My wife and I were moving at a quicker pace, so we gradually overtook them as we walked. After a moment, the comments turned to us, and behind us we heard the trio begin to address us, as we picked up the pace toward the truck. Normally I carried a rather large folding knife, but had left it in the truck due to us heading into the bar. (Fallacy number one, relying upon one's "weapon" for security...)

At this point, all of our alarms are going off, and the only thought racing through my head, is, "I have no knife, no self defense skills, a defenseless date, am out-numbered, and have only one way to run..." At this point we're only one notch below a jog, and quickly make it to the truck. She hops inside, hands me the knife, and I close and lock the doors as I round the truck to hop in the driver's side... I hear them yell, "That's right, lock those doors!" as out of the parking lot comes a uniformed LEO, pointing his flashlight on them asking, "is there a problem guys?" The thugs quickly pipe down, and I hop in the truck and kick rocks...

Now on to discussion...

1. How do you recognize when you are in that cycle?

This is the hardest part - recognizing. Lots of factors can hinder a person from realizing that a situation is turning bad. Denial, tunnel vision, ego, panic, inexperience etc. can all be inhibitors to recognizing when things are headed south. Perhaps 'waiting it out' is a natural reaction, but rarely is it effective. In the above situation, seeing the slow-moving trio acting odd and being unusually loud set off the first alarm. Looking back, that should have also triggered a response. But, judgement (or lack thereof) failed...

2. What do you do to break out of it once you recognize it?

Once you've recognized that things have gone sour, perhaps the Avoid, De-escalate, Evade is the best tactic is the best to employ. In the above situation, simply holding back, or taking a longer route along a more well-lit path would have avoided the entire situation. (Of course avoiding a bar might have saved us the situation, but it could have happened leaving any other place...) However, I don't believe engaging them would have been wise by any measure, so I'm not sure how de-escalation would have worked out here. Evasion, would have meant we took on a sprint to the truck, or before passing them, in the other direction. Had they any real intent to harm, this may or may not have worked.

Although, I believe the method should be, avoid trouble - evade from trouble (if possible) - de-escalate any trouble (if not possible to evade) - then evade from said trouble. Only once you are backed into a corner with no other means of regress, should you defend yourself with force.

To answer the second question though, I'd say the best thing to do is keep up your guard before trouble starts, and BE PREPARED to act out your response at the first sign of trouble. For us, that should have meant avoiding the alley altogether, sticking to the well lit sidewalks. (Boy, the Scout's sure give out some great advice eh? )

Feel free to comment on any of the above... Thoughts?

 

[Deanimator]

Lately, I've been reading stories of self-defense as well as stories of "I survived" type (or watching one of the various shows on cable that cover both scenarios). In many of these stories, I often note that the person involved makes what can charitably be called "poor judgment" which leads to higher stress and the need for faster decision making which in turn causes them to make another bad judgment, etc.

That seems to be a chronic problem with the NYPD.

They create their own "emergency" and then go way over the top in "addressing" it.

That's why several NYC cops had to resign recently over the shooting of the groom outside the bachelor party. They engaged in a cascading series of acts grounded in dubious judgment which ended in somebody getting shot. I've always believed that their series of actions convinced the victim that he was being carjacked, causing him to [ineffectually] resist, causing them in turn to riddle him, his vehicle and his passengers. It was all totally avoidable.

Likewise the shooting of Patrick Dorismond. A plainclothes NYC cop badgered Dorismond to sell him drugs to the point where Dorismond physically assaulted him, whereupon the cop shot and killed the unarmed Dorismond.

Something similar probably took place in the shooting of Treyvon Martin. Zimmerman confronted Martin when he really didn't need to and in the end, shot him to death, whether necessarily or not. Had he not confronted him, the shooting almost certainly wouldn't have happened, justified or not.

Stupidity gets people needlessly killed as often as malice.

 

[Deanimator]

How do you recognize when you are in that cycle?

Ask yourself, "Is what I'm about to do actually NECESSARY? What are the potential consequences?"

I don't like people all that much in the first place. I don't particularly want to talk to strangers AT ALL. That means that I'm far less likely to pointlessly argue with strangers, leading to potential conflicts.

A few years ago, a lawyer friend was representing the building in which his office was located. There's a Planned Parenthood facility in the same building and a small group of militant anti-abortion protestors were INTENTIONALLY using large posters of aborted fetuses to block the view of the street from a sunken driveway, almost leading to several traffic accidents. Additionally, they were harassing ANY woman who entered the building (in which there are other businesses), frightening children with their posters and filming the CHILDREN of adults who complained.

My friend asked me to take pictures of them blocking the driveway as evidence to be provided to the local police. Eventually, they saw me taking pictures and two of them came over to try to intimidate me, one after the other.

They swore at me, tried to provoke a fight, and in general tried to create a scene. In response, I totally ignored them. I neither spoke to, nor directly looked at them. Instead, I kept taking pictures, while keeping a subtle eye on them to make sure they didn't get too close. Had they approached too close to me, I would have stepped into the building in front of which I was sitting. I was armed; had they pursued me into the building, I would have done what was necessary to defend myself.

By refusing to engage them in any way, I frustrated their efforts to provoke me, or to portray me as an aggressor in any way. Eventually, they got frustrated and wandered away.

Nobody got hurt. Nobody got shot. And the other anti-abortion protestors banished them from their group for being counter-productive extremists.

 

[JRH6856]

Zimmerman confronted Martin when he really didn't need to

There is no evidence of that. The evidence indicates that Martin confronted Zimmerman while Zimmerman was returning to his car after losing sight of Martin. Zimmerman's breakdown in judgement came when he left his car to follow Martin in the first place. If he had stayed in his car and waited for the cops, Martin would have had no need and less opportunity to confront him.

 

[Deanimator]

Zimmerman's breakdown in judgement came when he left his car to follow Martin in the first place.

You can argue around the margins whether that counted as a "confrontation", but indeed, there would have been no OPPORTUNITY for a confrontation... or what happened subsequently, if Zimmerman had not left his vehicle.

 

[Serenity]

JAshley73's post brought something up that I was just discussing with my grandparents. People are victimized all of the time because they don't want to be rude. We let people get too close in parking lots, open our doors to strangers, buy things we don't want (Grandma just bought a $1000 vacuum cleaner that they can NOT afford), and make unwelcome advances. So many violations that wouldn't happen if we put our hand up and said STOP. But we don't do it because we were raised better than to be rude. Or because we feel a bit foolish for "over-reacting" which gets back to the root rudeness issue.

I'm working on being rude but it goes completely against the grain; it takes work and self-encouragement and produces anxiety at first.

 

[308win]

No is one of those concepts/words that become easier with use. I have reached the point that if I don't know the person or initiate the exchange the answer is almost always no.

 

[Serenity]

AND there is just flat out denial. Refusal to believe that whatever is happening is going down. Not gun related but happening right in front of me: our little river is above flood level. It is almost to the little locally owned supermarket door. The building has been designed to place slats across the doors and then put sandbags in front of them (part of the floodplain code). I talked to him earlier and he seemed unconcerned. We had a few hours of sun this afternoon but forecasts were unanimously calling for rain and snow tonight. Now it's raining like hell and if he hasn't taken action he's going to flood. Hubby is going to stop in and offer to help (and try to convince him) on the way home from work. When I talked to the store owner earlier and asked him about the building design, he said "hopefully we'll never have a chance to find out." Like the water wasn't a FOOT below his door! :banghead: He's not dumb, he's not lazy, he's not an arse; he's in denial.

 

[Shimitup]

May I suggest some fascinating reading regarding the progression of poor decision making. The process is thoroughly examined in a book called Pilot Error. Basically it is a collection of transcriptions from pilot-controller dialogue of pilots in trouble, following to the morbid end. Each chapter finishes with a complete analysis of the pilots failed decision making process. Kind of morbid but a essential reading if you're a pilot and absolutely fascinating if you're not. My Wife is not a pilot but one night she picked it up and could not put it down until she finished.

 

[Sam1911]

Another book along those lines is Sway, by Ori and Rom Brafman.

Discusses some instances of pilot error undoubtedly included in that book as well.

It is an interesting study of why we get sucked into throwing away our resources or even lives chasing ever-worsening odds.

I don't recall any segments that really speak to near-instantaneous judgment calls as are likely in assault/defense situations, but I'll be there were some.

 

[Jim K]

Part of the problem in the FL incident is inherent in the concept of an armed citizen. I believe absolutely in the right to be armed in my own defense, but the problem is that an armed citizen has no training or background in handling any situation except one involving deadly force.

A typical police officer has other weapons, Mace, Taser, baton, that can be used in less than life threatening situations. He/she is also probably protected by a vest, and is in top physical condition, capable of handling many situations without any weapon. But most important, the officer is trained to deal with abuse, insults and general nastiness without using any of those weapons. Police can, and almost always do, defuse a situation before it turns violent because they practice that scenario over and over. Citizens do not, and tend to react to insults, threats and physical attack with physical force.

And the armed citizen, unless he/she is strong and trained in martial arts, has only one weapon, a firearm, to respond to any threat. There is an old saying that when you have only a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you only have a gun, everything can look like a deadly threat.

Most states require training before issuing a CCW license. But that training tends to be in handling a gun and in the legal ramifications of using it, not in handling a potentially dangerous situation without using it.

Jim

 

[wasr10634unme]

stoped watching that show when a lady on there drew a revolver then decided not to use it and she cost her friend his life. stupid bewjbfzsdk

carry 24/7. stay aware. practice often. and dont be afraid of pullin the damn trigger.