Dr. Krista Forrest, professor of psychology at the University of Nebraska at Kearney
Meet Dr. Krista Forrest
NSRI Fellow Dr. Krista Forrest, professor in the department of psychology at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, grounds her research in legal psychology and group dynamics. Threats like deterring and countering chemical, biological and nuclear attacks “start and end with people," she says. "These areas assist us in better understanding how information is shared and decisions are made within groups of varying sizes. Focusing on groups as developmental rather than intact can also improve productivity across work conditions."
Dr. Forrest’s background in both social and developmental psychology provides a scaffold to better examine factors that increase the likelihood that adolescents and other social media users would report defense threats made by fellow users; those who could become domestic terrorists, which could, in turn, give the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) more time to respond to said threats.
Q&A
Why are you interested in supporting national security?
As an experimental social psychologist, I have always been interested in how the real or hypothetical presence of others influences our attitudes, decisions and behaviors. I became a researcher for the freedom to study these influences across multiple contexts and a professor to inspire students to be wise as they navigate their world. I frequently apply my background in research methods to better understand real-world concerns. National security protects our freedom to study any topic and by supporting national security I can increase the likelihood that my students and colleagues will have those same opportunities.
What national security challenges could you offer your expertise to solve?
I have studied group interactions and taught graduate and undergraduate-level courses in group dynamics for 25 years.
My students and I have investigated factors influencing behaviors in and satisfaction with decision-making groups, variables that influence a person's likelihood of falsely confessing, and the effects of different forms of police deception on juror and jury decision-making.
Although much of my work was done in an experimental lab, I am not new at applying my findings to real-world issues and explaining their importance to those outside the classroom; civilians, law enforcement, defendants, jurors, attorneys, judges.
Law enforcement agencies differ from national security agencies in size and scope, but there are also similarities. They shield and protect their constituents. They are often misunderstood by those they serve. And they both often have to make quick individual and group decisions. I believe my experiences studying individuals and other groups could be used to evaluate processes for making and disseminating decisions within national security. The goal would be to apply evidence-based strategies to increase member and leader satisfaction as well as civilian satisfaction with the group's decisions.
How do you think your area of expertise can contribute to national security challenges?
My expertise allows me to answer many of the questions that national security may want to know.
- What factors will best improve the morale of units in isolated areas?
- How do disagreements with former allies influence civilian attitudes toward the government?
- How are civilians influenced by potential security concerns?
- What variables improve civilian support for military initiatives?
- How can we reduce alcohol use and domestic violence in isolated areas?
Although many of these questions may be answered with surveys, it is also possible to create experiments that would allow us more control over independent and possible confound variables.
Students studying group dynamics are fascinated with the concept of groupthink. Groupthink is not a solitary influence that is easily identified and removed. Rather, groupthink is a combination of environmental and personal factors such as:
- Extreme cohesiveness
- Oversharing information everyone knows at the expense of discussing the new information only a few members have
- Beliefs that the group and its decisions are both morally sound and invulnerable to scorn and criticism
Members in highly cohesive groups may unintentionally work harder to be liked than to be right. As a result, members are less likely to point out possible errors and often incorrectly infer that other, quiet members agree with what they fear is a faulty decision.
What do you see in the next five or 10 years in your space that you think is important for national security leaders to consider?
Many countries appear to be led by individuals who are often unilaterally credited with their country's successes while singularly blamed for their failures, yet decisions made by those leaders are the product of many interdisciplinary groups using their expertise to:
- Predict the threat multiple years before people are aware of the possibility
- Examine the current political, financial and technological contexts in which the threat is being considered
- Identifying the most effective strategy for responding to the threat, taking into consideration all of these factors
National security serves as a scaffold where each bolt reflects a group that makes decisions and solves problems. Yet, these groups are only effective if members and leaders create a culture where concerns with suggested solutions can be shared without consequences and members spend more time discussing information NOT known by all with one another than repeating information known by all.
What are you working on now that excites you and why?
This research may apply to national security in two ways:
- It may be, in order to get the most accurate and timely intelligence, teams of security analysts who vary in levels of Field Independence/Dependence may be the most successful at attending to detailed and general information across multiple formats (i.e., graphs, text, images).
- These cognitive differences may influence strategies individual and team players use during wargames.
Based on previous research, we expect participants who are higher on field independence to score higher on detailed comprehension questions related to graphs and participants who are higher on field dependence to score higher on general comprehension questions related to text. If our hypotheses are confirmed, the next study will involve creating teams where one member is higher in field independence and the other is higher in field dependence. This will allow us to determine whether a collaborative approach where team members differ in cognitive skills would be more accurate on complex tasks than participants randomly assigned to pairs.
Learn more about Dr. Forrest via her UNK Bio.
