--- tags: - devops - l1 - flashcard-deck - incident-psychology --- [Portal](../../../../library/portal/index.md) | **Level:** [L1: Foundations](../../../../library/portal/levels.md) | **Topics:** [Incident Psychology](../../../../library/portal/topics.md) | **Domain:** DevOps & Tooling id category difficulty tags question answer source_path incident-psychology/1e9103972cd8 incident-psychology easy incident, stress, performance What does the Yerkes-Dodson stress-performance curve show about decision-making during incidents? Performance peaks at optimal stress, then degrades. At 3 AM after 2 hours of debugging, you are past optimal — decisions get worse. Effects include tunnel vision, shrinking working memory, defaulting to familiar patterns, time distortion, and degraded communication. This is when escalation saves the incident. training/library/topics/incident-psychology/primer.md incident-psychology/3e049f38d37c incident-psychology easy incident, bias, anchoring What is anchoring bias during an outage and how do you counter it? The first piece of information (e.g., "I think it's the database") becomes an anchor that distorts all subsequent analysis. Counter-measure: write down three hypotheses before investigating any. Set a 15-minute timer and re-evaluate: "Are we still pursuing the right theory? What evidence do we have against it?" training/library/topics/incident-psychology/primer.md incident-psychology/927deed2c360 incident-psychology easy incident, reboot, impulse Why is the "just reboot it" impulse dangerous during incidents? Rebooting destroys evidence (process state, memory contents, connection state), masks the root cause (it will come back), may not help if the cause is external, and may make things worse if state is corrupted. The rule: capture state FIRST (logs, thread dumps, connection state, core dumps), then reboot if needed. A restart that fixes something temporarily is a clue, not a solution. training/library/topics/incident-psychology/primer.md incident-psychology/bb93e9947729 incident-psychology medium incident, bias, confirmation What is confirmation bias during incident response and how do you counter it? You search for evidence supporting your theory while unconsciously ignoring contradicting evidence. \nExample: finding one error near deploy time confirms your "deploy broke it" theory while ignoring that errors started 10 minutes before the deploy. Counter: actively try to disprove your theory by asking "What evidence would prove me WRONG?" and "What else should I see if this theory is correct?" training/library/topics/incident-psychology/primer.md incident-psychology/9e2e7588a8be incident-psychology medium incident, team, hippo What is the HiPPO effect in war rooms and how do you counter it? HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion): when a senior person states a theory, nobody contradicts them even when they're wrong, and the investigation follows their direction regardless of evidence. Counter: the Incident Commander runs the investigation, not the highest-ranking person. The VP's role is to provide resources and remove blockers, not direct technical investigation. training/library/topics/incident-psychology/primer.md incident-psychology/c609956ccb3d incident-psychology medium incident, team, blame Why must an Incident Commander immediately shut down blame language during an active incident? Blame language ("Who pushed this code?") causes people to stop sharing information for self-protection, the person who caused the issue hides relevant context, and investigation stalls as people defend rather than diagnose. The IC should redirect: "We're focused on fixing this, not finding fault. We'll do a blameless postmortem after resolution." training/library/topics/incident-psychology/primer.md incident-psychology/6e0a542ba6f5 incident-psychology medium incident, bias, sunk-cost How does the sunk cost fallacy manifest during incident response? After investing 45 minutes investigating one theory, abandoning it feels like wasting that time, so you keep going even without supporting evidence. Counter: time-box investigations with a hard 15-minute rule. After 15 minutes ask "What have I learned? Is this still the best path?" Past time spent is irrelevant to the correct next action. training/library/topics/incident-psychology/primer.md incident-psychology/5c755340ebd2 incident-psychology hard incident, psychological-safety Why is psychological safety critical for incident response and how do you build it? The person who caused the incident often has the most context. If they are afraid to speak up, you lose critical information. Build safety by: leaders sharing their own mistakes publicly, thanking people for bad news, consistently running blameless postmortems, celebrating near-miss reports, and never punishing someone for causing an incident if they followed the process (fix the process, not the person). training/library/topics/incident-psychology/primer.md incident-psychology/434b8c9b1e43 incident-psychology hard incident, fatigue, handoff What is decision fatigue during incidents and how should IC handoffs work? After 2+ hours of continuous decision-making, quality degrades — defaulting to easiest options, avoiding decisions, repeating checks, getting irritable. Rotate the IC role every 2 hours. The handoff must be explicit: current state, hypotheses tested, next steps, what hasn't been checked. The outgoing IC takes a real break — not "I'll keep watching." training/library/topics/incident-psychology/primer.md incident-psychology/851e2d03de61 incident-psychology hard incident, post-incident, emotional What emotional processing should happen after a major incident? People feel relief, guilt, anger, exhaustion, and anxiety. Do NOT jump straight into a postmortem while emotions are raw, dismiss feelings, publicly identify the person who caused it, or schedule them for on-call the next day. DO acknowledge the stress, give decompression time, schedule the postmortem 24-48 hours later, check in privately with the person closest to the cause, and normalize the experience. training/library/topics/incident-psychology/primer.md --- ## Wiki Navigation ### Related Content - [The Psychology of Incidents](../../../../library/topics/incident-psychology/index.md) (Topic Pack, L2) — Incident Psychology