Risk, feelings, and operational readiness

Although it is widely believed that high quality

judgements and operational readiness involve

experiential as well as analytical processing, field

studies are rare in decision research. A series of

empirical studies were therefore directed at

studying the underlying affective and cognitive

processes in risk, feelings, and operational

readiness within a military setting. Three different

projects are reported, and altogether 8 different

military samples participated. Mixed methods and

designs were applied, ranging from the

classical ¿psychometric risk approach¿, panel data,

and field experiments. This work suggests that

perceived risk among military personnel relates to

risk exposure, qualitative aspects of the hazard,

and to anticipations of anxiousness. Risk perception

seems less affected by anticipatory/experienced

emotions or experimentally induced affect. In

general, this work supports the notion of ''affective

rationality'' in subjective risk perception and

operational readiness.