Decision-Making in Extreme Situations
Following the Fukushima Daiichi Accident
Sébastien Travadel
Abstract The Fukushima Daiichi accident raises questions about current
decision-making models. Faced with an overwhelming situation, which threatened
both their own lives and that of the entire population, the plant’s operators were
obliged to take action, despite the lack of resources. In these conditions, decision
making cannot be reduced to an optimization exercise based on a range of possibilities, or the application of planned operational responses to an emergency situation. The inevitable catastrophe, the social pressure it generates, the moral
dilemmas it creates and the psychological drivers for action are characteristic of an
extreme situation. The action plan must therefore be reinvented and individuals
mobilised to these ends. It is therefore in a broader context of ‘action’ that decision
making takes shape, and finds its logical foundations, meaning and temporality.
Understanding decision making in extreme situations first requires a grasp of the
development of a specific value system (that is mediated by the physical experience
of the situation) in which the individual and social representations play a central
role.
Keywords Decision-making Á Extreme situations Á Uncertainty Á Ambiguity Á
Rationality Á Temporality
1 Introduction
When Circe warned Odysseus about the dilemma he would face when passing
through the Strait of Messina, she reminded him that it would be a decision of the
heart. However, the priestess suggested that he choose the peril of Scylla: better to
lose a few companions than to see them all engulfed by Charybdis. Odysseus
followed this advice. Therefore, how can we say he ‘decided’?
S. Travadel (&)
Centre for Research on Risks and Crises (CRC), MINES ParisTech,
PSL – Research University, Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France
e-mail: sebastien.travadel@mines-paristech.fr
© The Author(s) 2017
J. Ahn et al. (eds.), Resilience: A New Paradigm of Nuclear Safety,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58768-4_13
169
Following the Fukushima Daiichi Accident
Sébastien Travadel
Abstract The Fukushima Daiichi accident raises questions about current
decision-making models. Faced with an overwhelming situation, which threatened
both their own lives and that of the entire population, the plant’s operators were
obliged to take action, despite the lack of resources. In these conditions, decision
making cannot be reduced to an optimization exercise based on a range of possibilities, or the application of planned operational responses to an emergency situation. The inevitable catastrophe, the social pressure it generates, the moral
dilemmas it creates and the psychological drivers for action are characteristic of an
extreme situation. The action plan must therefore be reinvented and individuals
mobilised to these ends. It is therefore in a broader context of ‘action’ that decision
making takes shape, and finds its logical foundations, meaning and temporality.
Understanding decision making in extreme situations first requires a grasp of the
development of a specific value system (that is mediated by the physical experience
of the situation) in which the individual and social representations play a central
role.
Keywords Decision-making Á Extreme situations Á Uncertainty Á Ambiguity Á
Rationality Á Temporality
1 Introduction
When Circe warned Odysseus about the dilemma he would face when passing
through the Strait of Messina, she reminded him that it would be a decision of the
heart. However, the priestess suggested that he choose the peril of Scylla: better to
lose a few companions than to see them all engulfed by Charybdis. Odysseus
followed this advice. Therefore, how can we say he ‘decided’?
S. Travadel (&)
Centre for Research on Risks and Crises (CRC), MINES ParisTech,
PSL – Research University, Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France
e-mail: sebastien.travadel@mines-paristech.fr
© The Author(s) 2017
J. Ahn et al. (eds.), Resilience: A New Paradigm of Nuclear Safety,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58768-4_13
169