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Suggested Citation:"Part III: Analysts." National Research Council. 2011. Intelligence Analysis: Behavioral and Social Scientific Foundations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13062.
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Part III
Analysts

Analysis depends on the skills, training, and judgment of the analysts. The four papers in this section report and apply behavioral and social sciences research on individual reasoning, intuitive theories of behavior, group processes, and intergroup dynamics. Each topic was selected because it represents some of the most significant challenges to and opportunities for improving the way analysts perform their work.

In Chapter 6, Barbara A. Spellman describes some of the vast research on individual reasoning. Much of that research details systematic shortcomings and biases in reasoning. Spellman illustrates how recent theories explain such shortcomings as products of people’s desire to seek causes and explanations of events, people’s tendency to see each situation as unique, and the interaction between conscious and unconscious reasoning systems. Understanding these general reasoning processes, and how they may lead to errors, can contribute to improving analysis by improving the design of analysts’ training, tasks, tools, and work environments.

In Chapter 7, Hal Arkes and James Kajdasz present the intuitive theories that guide individuals’ interpretation of others’ behavior, a fundamental task of intelligence analysts. They show how these intuitive theories are often wrong and how they can lead to erroneous inferences. As examples, they describe tendencies to attribute individuals’ actions to personal characteristics, neglecting situational constraints; exaggerate confidence in the quality of one’s assessments and predictions; underestimate the risk of relying on expertise; place unwarranted confidence in gathering additional information; and confuse the role of intuition in judgment. Arkes and

Suggested Citation:"Part III: Analysts." National Research Council. 2011. Intelligence Analysis: Behavioral and Social Scientific Foundations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13062.
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Kajdasz stress the critical importance of questioning and testing intuitive theories and assumptions.

In Chapter 8, Reid Hastie summarizes research into how analyses differ when carried out by groups and individuals. Understanding those differences provides opportunities to design more effective group processes. He notes that successful teams have been found to have four key features: (1) a clear, separate identity; (2) a clear purpose; (3) a structure appropriate to their tasks; and (4) a system of self-monitoring and regular feedback, allowing the team to learn from experience. Hastie notes, too, the inherent tensions between individuals and their groups—which often have both divergent and convergent goals—when trying to accommodate both the insights of individual opinions and the pressure for consensus. He shows how these tensions may be balanced differently depending on a group’s analytical task.

In Chapter 9, Catherine H. Tinsley considers the effects of social categorization on collaboration within the intelligence community. She notes that efforts to increase collaboration among agencies face the well-documented tendency for the members of any group to accentuate differences with the members of other groups. Such grouping of people into social categories has both benefits and costs that must be recognized for effective organizational design. That recognition is often hampered by the subtle ways in which groups’ culture and thinking shape their ability to understand and work with outsiders. Factors that intensify such intergroup biases include external pressures and strong or threatened group identification. Tinsley shows how awareness of these factors allows implementation of techniques that can improve collaboration, such as focusing on a higher-level group or minimizing group identification.

Suggested Citation:"Part III: Analysts." National Research Council. 2011. Intelligence Analysis: Behavioral and Social Scientific Foundations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13062.
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Page 115
Suggested Citation:"Part III: Analysts." National Research Council. 2011. Intelligence Analysis: Behavioral and Social Scientific Foundations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13062.
×
Page 116
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The U.S. intelligence community (IC) is a complex human enterprise whose success depends on how well the people in it perform their work. Although often aided by sophisticated technologies, these people ultimately rely on their own intellect to identify, synthesize, and communicate the information on which the nation's security depends. The IC's success depends on having trained, motivated, and thoughtful people working within organizations able to understand, value, and coordinate their capabilities.

Intelligence Analysis provides up-to-date scientific guidance for the intelligence community (IC) so that it might improve individual and group judgments, communication between analysts, and analytic processes. The papers in this volume provide the detailed evidentiary base for the National Research Council's report, Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow: Advances from the Behavioral and Social Sciences. The opening chapter focuses on the structure, missions, operations, and characteristics of the IC while the following 12 papers provide in-depth reviews of key topics in three areas: analytic methods, analysts, and organizations.

Informed by the IC's unique missions and constraints, each paper documents the latest advancements of the relevant science and is a stand-alone resource for the IC's leadership and workforce. The collection allows readers to focus on one area of interest (analytic methods, analysts, or organizations) or even one particular aspect of a category. As a collection, the volume provides a broad perspective of the issues involved in making difficult decisions, which is at the heart of intelligence analysis.

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