Working Group 32 Charter
  Warfighter Performance and Social Science Methods

(Last Updated 11 September 2007)

PURPOSE: This interdisciplinary working group provides a forum for presentations, discussions, and peer review of ongoing and completed research in warfighter performance and social science methods. Warfighter performance refers to tasks that are executed during combat and stability and support operations. Social science methods refer to the research tools and methods, including quantitative and qualitative methods, used to examine and analyze both aggregate and individual behaviors. Social Science methods also refers to how sociology, economics, anthropology, psychology, politics, and demography influence the policy and doctrine of our armed services.

DISCUSSION: Traditionally, military operations research has utilized conventional operations research techniques, wherein the system being analyzed is under control and results can be determined precisely. However, because the most important part of any system is the human operator, it is crucial that today’s operations research analysts incorporate social science methods, human factors, and human performance variability into their analyses.

On the modern battlefield, warfighters must perform the primary tasks of movement, target acquisition and engagement, and communication. Additionally, they must sense a constellation of cues in their combat environment, perceive the tactical relevance of these combat cues as they pertain to their particular situation, and then make sound decisions to ensure mission success. However, there is no doubt that many cognitive factors and psychological influences such as leadership, morale, esprit de corps, and “the fog of war” will have a profound effect on the performance of these individuals and combat units. Representing and incorporating these factors adequately into models, simulations, and studies are sizeable challenges.

Because of the extreme variability of the warfighter’s performance and behavior on the modern battlefield, social science investigators may not be able to perform standard parametric or non-parametric analyses of the available data and must develop new tools to assist them. This working group examines these innovative methods and their application to military analyses.

OTHER WORKING GROUPS: Working Group 32 is an integral component of Composite Group F (Advances in Military Operations Research) and has a close working relationship with WG-29 (Modeling, Simulation, and Wargaming), WG-31 (Computing Advances in Military Operations Research), and WG-33 (Analytical Rigor in Experimentation).