THE "DOOMSDAY" DILEMMA - SCREENING EXERCISES/ACTIVITIES FOR MILITARY, LAW ENFORCEMENT, FIRST RESPONDERS, RESCUE UNITS, AND MORE

Disclaimer: The content provided by Dr. Moran Sciamama-Saghiv on physical screening for military, law enforcement, and similar professions is intended solely for educational and informational purposes. It does not constitute medical, legal, or professional advice, nor does it establish any professional relationship. Readers must obtain proper medical clearance and institutional authorization before applying any information. Dr. Sciamama-Saghiv disclaims all liability for injury, loss, or misuse of the material.

I am Dr. Moran Sciamama-Saghiv, ex-Army officer and an expert of many years on screening processes (especially yet not limited to military with an emphasis on special forces; physical aspects). I offer consultation services and a variety of lectures related to the Israeli military. I would be happy to collaborate with you (if and when relevant). In the meanwhile, I invite you to read my blog post series on the screening processes for military, law enforcement, rescue units, first responders, etc.

In a previous series of blog posts, I have surveyed the multiple and diverse aspects of how to establish or improve a physically-based screening process for military, law enforcement, first responders, rescue units, and more. In this series we will focus on actual suggestions for exercises/activities that can be used in a screening process, and possible variations. Each blog post in the series will analyze the elements that the screening activity requires, "pros" and "cons", "do" and "don'ts", and how the screening activity serves as a tool in the hands of the evaluators.

In some cases, there is more than one way to conduct the exercise, analyze it, or experience it. We will survey both physically-based screening exercises/activities, and non-physical screening exercises/activities. Furthermore, many screening exercises are planned in a way that your ability to prepare for them is limited as much as possible (even with previous knowledge and practice) or simply are meant to examine if you meet the minimum requirements and nothing more.

The "doomsday dilemma" is a non-physical exercise/activity that is meant to observed who are the active, dominant, and vocal leaders, submissive and/or quite group members, who's involved in group dynamics or not, and each candidate's approach to solving a problem or multiple problems. It also allows to observed who's data and fact based in their conductance, who is easily influenced to change their opinion, who is stubborn and will not adapt no matter what, the ability to scale and/or rank data according to importance and relevancy, social and religious perceptions, and the tendency to democratic vs authoritarian decision making. In some cases, it can give away alliances, sub-groups, and friendships. Lastly, it can indicate the level of a candidate's involvement and knowledge of society and professions.

Dilemma

The basis of the dilemma lies in the fact that the scenario presented to the candidates (either actively or passively) is that the world has just experienced a catastrophe, there is only one bunker that can sustain those remaining of humanity, yet it can only sustain 10 people while there are 20 people left alive. The group must decide who are the 10 that will be saved, repopulated the Earth, and advance humanity. To make a difference and cause individual and group dynamics, the team are informed of the professions of each of the 20 people, and their relationship with each other (if at all). The team must come to a unanimous agreement on all 10 people to be saved.

The following facts make for the strong dilemma:

1. Not everyone can be saved - half will be condemned to death by their decision.

2. There is only one woman that is young enough and can give birth to children and repopulate the earth, yet she has nothing else in her favor, and her husband has nothing working in his favor either.

3. The priest is extremely old.

4. One of the elderly holds an extremely valuable skill set required for advance Earth, yet his elderly wife does not.

5. Another person is gay, yet holds the best skill set of them all to advance humanity on Earth.

6. Others have skill sets that no commonly know to the public or not held in high regard, though they are crucial for mission success.

7. Others have controversial opinions or backgrounds.

There are multiple possible versions to the "doomsday" dilemma that can be created by:

1. Changing the level of involvement (or lack thereof) of the instructor/evaluators. Do we answer questions they may have or not? do we answer some questions and some not? do we read the instructions to them and explain, or just hand the instructions to them in silence?

2. Changing the ratio between people saved to people doomed.

3. shortening the time allocated (greater pressure) vs lengthening the time (lesser pressure).

4. Changing the age, skill set, professions, biological sex, inter-character relationships, and opinions of characters.

5. Create a developing scenario that causes the solutions to be more and more brutal and challenging. For example - upon entry into the bunker, it becomes apparent that it can sustain only 5 or 7 people. Who else should now be doomed?

6. Another way to mess with the candidates' head is to share images of the people. This makes it more personal, the characters might remind them of someone they know, might evoke emotions and thoughts about their appearance ("ugly" vs attractive; clean vs "dirty"; innocent vs manipulative; etc.). This alone presents multiple options to diversify the exercise/activity.

7. Another option is to pre-record the "plea" of each character why they should be saved. This alone presents multiple options to diversify the exercise/activity.

8. I always try to remember to write "other" to show that I am not the only one that can think of ideas and/or ways to influence the process.

Group Dynamics as Part of a Screening Exercise/Dilemma

From my experience, giving a shorter amount of time to come to a unanimous agreement, and radicalizing the characters, results in a stronger group dynamic, better ability to distinguish between peoples traits, emotions, thoughts, and skills, and if group failure is one of the goals (preventing them from succeeding at all costs and testing their ability to deal with failure and high levels of aggravation), then the chances of such failure is extremely high.

Curious? need help? have questions? - contact me!

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