The human factor is an inexhaustible subject since it is mainly based on the understanding of human psychology.
The primary reason to be interested in it is that many mountain accidents are due to poor decision-making and not to objective risks.
So understanding the psychological mechanisms at work in our decision-making in the mountains seems essential to me.
The first area for improvement is to know the psychological biases we fall into.
Often it is an automatic mode of operation of the brain, a sort of natural and spontaneous impulse of which we must be aware.
The best known are certainly those studied by Ian McCammon.
It is an American researcher who studied 700 cases of avalanche victims to understand what led to the accident despite the presence of objective elements to turn around. He identified 6 unconscious traps in the mountains:
> Habit: Instead of racking your brain to imagine what is most appropriate each time, you simply behave as you have done before in a similar situation. In fact it is a way to make a decision effortlessly, we refer to what we have always done. -> to remember: We tend to see objective risks less in familiar territory.
> Obstinacy: Once you make an initial decision about something, subsequent decisions are much easier to make if you stay consistent with the first one. -> your brain does everything to ensure that your decisions are consistent with each other, which biases your judgment.
> The desire for seduction: The desire for seduction corresponds to the tendency to engage in an activity that we think will get us noticed or accepted by people we like or respect. -> cf he studied that there were many more accidents in mixed groups.
> The aura of the expert: the leader gives off a positive impression which leads the group to attribute to him skills that he may not have. -> to remember: In general, it appears that groups do better when they use consensual decisions, than when they rely on an informal leader who lacks skills.
> Social positioning: When a person or group is confident in their skills, they will tend to take more risks using those skills when other people are around, than if there was no one observing them. -> see the way people ski when they pass under a chairlift or people look at them.
> The feeling of scarcity: The scarcity mechanism is the one that leads to assigning a greater value to an opportunity the more likely we are to lose it.
-> Example: Those accustomed to “powder fever” after heavy snowfalls have seen this mechanism in action, with disproportionate risk-taking for the sole purpose of making the first trace.
Solution: Because these mechanisms work so well, they allow us to make decisions with little effort, and because we use them almost all the time, we are ill-prepared to distrust them. Knowing how to identify them remains the first step.
Professional guides are trained to take psychological factors into account and remain the best choise for your mountain outings.
Information from objectifalpinisme.com ant it autor Thomas Minot
Comments