Summit fever

• Mountain climbers call it “summit fever” when one or more individuals in a group of climbers become so enamored with the notion of reaching the summit of a mountain that they ignore less exciting issues such as how to safely descend the mountainside and live to tell one’s self and others about the experience. In this paper, we review decision-making literature on symmetric vs. asymmetric goal formation, as well as innocuous and fallacious learning. We develop a process theory of summit fever by defining that summit fever is when fallacious learning in chase of an asymmetric goal disproportionately narrows attention to a peak milestone. A halfway milestone that represents a peak experience then is prone to lead to goal conflation so that the way forward is compromised at the expense of reaching the ultimate goal. We illustrate the emerging framework by revisiting how and how summit fever led to a mountaineering accident on K2 in 2008 whereby 11 out of 26 climbers involved died. Our conclusions include implications for further research.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)