The study revisits the concept that instinctive decision making in both the corporate and individual realms has become more important in crisis decision making because it is a natural human tendency.

The speed and timeliness of making decisions are critical in crises. Researchers question whether organizations along with individuals attempt to process too much information. Outside stimuli also interfere with decision making thus slowing the process even more. These factors contribute to degrading any competitive advantage or innovation gained by an organization that is unable to yield accurate and speedy crisis decision making. The dissertation attempts to examine decision making when a sense of urgency is present. Time, as a scarce resource, is a valuable commodity in decision making greatly impacting innovational ability and creativity. Crisis managers argue that unless critical decisions invoke dire consequences, many decisions constitute mere problem solving rather than actual crisis management. Many case studies and examples presented in literature do not present actual crises involving dire results.

Research in the dissertation compared decisions made for five identical crisis scenarios. The first round of scenarios involved decision making made under fast and frugal conditions. A second round provided time to evaluate and ponder decisions. Initial variables to help understand decisions in the five scenarios included subject education, a sense of time pressures, and gender. The researcher selected gender as a moderating variable to mark a difference between instinctive species and individual survival.

The research questions for this study were as follows: Question 1 Does there appear to be differences in verbal and Nonverbal responses in individuals responding to urgent versus nonurgent crises scenarios? If so, what are these differences? Question 2 Does there appear to be differences in thinking and reasoning processes indicative of over-thinking or over-processing in nonurgent crises scenarios? If so, what are these differences? Question 3 Does there appear to be differences in verbal and nonverbal responses between women and men responding to urgent versus nonurgent crises scenarios? If so, what are these differences? Question 4 Does there appear to be differences in verbal and nonverbal responses between college undergraduate subjects versus college graduate subjects responding to urgent versus nonurgent crises scenarios? If so, what are these differences?

The research found partial evidence to either support or deny these questions in various degrees. What was interesting is that overall, another theme emerged much to the surprise of the researcher. it would seem Instinctive decisions seem more altruistic in nature.