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1 Introduction
Pages 1-8

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From page 1...
... This report is a summary and synthesis of the two days of presentations and discussions that took place during the workshop.2 The workshop participants included the members of the committee that planned the workshop, along with invited speakers and a number of other partici pants, including experts from a number of areas related to the behavioral sciences and the intelligence community. The goal of the workshop was not to provide specific recommendations but to offer some insight -- in large part through specific examples taken from other fields -- into the sorts of issues that surround the area of field evaluations.
From page 2...
... , discussed the ways in which the behavioral sciences can benefit intelligence analysis and why it is important for the intelligence community to build a partnership with the behavioral sciences community. First, however, Mandel offered a working definition of behavioral science: it is science aimed at understanding human behavior in a broad
From page 3...
... One important reason, he said, is that there are a number of factors that tend to weaken the relationship between the two communities and make analysts less likely to take advantage of what the behavioral sciences can offer. First, Mandel said, there is a natural inclination among most people -- including those in the intelligence community -- to react poorly to "scholarly verdicts that deal with issues such as the quality of their judgment and decision making, their susceptibility to irrational biases, their use of suboptimal heuristics, and overreliance on nondiagnostic information." Like most people, experts have the sense that they are competent.
From page 4...
... Mandel offered several supporting arguments for this conclusion. The first is an opportunity cost argument: Heuer's work has such a valuable payoff for the intelligence community that maintaining the status quo -- with no established mechanisms for applying behavioral science to intelligence analysis -- means missing out on many valuable applications that could be expected from a more systematic effort to exploit knowledge from behavioral science.
From page 5...
... In theory, Mandel said, it would be possible for the intelligence com munity to build its own applied behavioral research capability, but that would draw significant resources away from other operational areas and add an entirely new focus and purpose to the intelligence community's existing tasks. Furthermore, if the intelligence community were to hire behavioral scientists, it would find itself in competition with both academia, with its unparalleled freedoms, and industry, with its lucrative salaries.
From page 6...
... , much of the work of the intelligence community inevitably relies on such human-centered activities as asking questions and figuring out if someone is lying or predicting what someone will do in a particular situation, and HUMINT is generally acknowledged as the more important element in defeating terrorism and winning wars. And it is in HUMINT that insights and techniques from the behavioral sciences offer the potential of providing new and improved capabilities.
From page 7...
... I am losing friends out there." This pressure to save lives is a major driving force behind the current interest in applying behavioral science to intelligence, noted Robert Fein, a forensic psychologist at Harvard Medical School and a planning committee member, but it is a pressure that must be resisted to a certain degree if the science is to be done correctly. As discussed at various points in the workshop, a sense of urgency can lead to techniques and devices being adopted before they have been carefully evaluated, and this in turn can lead to reliance on methods that are ineffective or are less effective than available alternatives.


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