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Quiz: Incident Psychology

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3 questions

L1 (2 questions)

1. What is anchoring bias during an incident, and how do you counter it?

Show answer Anchoring bias occurs when the first piece of information encountered (e.g., someone says 'it is the database') dominates all subsequent investigation, even when later evidence contradicts it. Counter it by writing down three hypotheses before investigating any single one, and setting a 15-minute timer to re-evaluate: 'Are we still pursuing the right theory? What evidence do we have against it?'

2. Why should the postmortem be scheduled 24-48 hours after a major incident, not immediately?

Show answer Immediately after an incident, people feel relief, guilt, anger, exhaustion, and anxiety. Running the postmortem while emotions are raw turns it into blame or defensiveness rather than learning. Waiting 24-48 hours allows emotional processing. In the meantime, acknowledge the stress, give people time to decompress, and check in privately with the person closest to the cause.

L2 (1 questions)

1. What is plan continuation bias, and why is it especially dangerous during incident remediation?

Show answer Plan continuation bias is the reluctance to abort a remediation once started, even when signals indicate it is not working or making things worse. For example, continuing a database failover that is 60% complete even though the replica is degraded. It is dangerous because the sunk effort feels wasted if you stop. Counter it by defining abort criteria BEFORE starting any remediation action.