Quiz: Crisis and Correction

Q: According to the chapter, why is evidence alone almost never sufficient to change a field's mind? (a) Because evidence is usually wrong (b) Because each individual piece of counter-evidence can be absorbed by the existing paradigm without forcing a reckoning (c) Because fields don't care about evidence (d) Because crisis always arrives before enough evidence accumulates

(b) Evidence accumulates gradually, and each piece can be explained away — methodological flaws, outlier status, or future research will explain it. This absorption is locally rational, which is what makes it so effective at protecting wrong paradigms.

Q: The institutional grief cycle described in this chapter follows five stages. What is the correct order? (a) Anger → denial → bargaining → acceptance → depression (b) Denial → anger → bargaining → depression → acceptance (c) Denial → bargaining → anger → depression → acceptance (d) Anger → denial → depression → bargaining → acceptance

(b) Denial → anger → bargaining → depression → acceptance. The cycle mirrors Kübler-Ross's personal grief stages, adapted to institutional contexts.

Q: Which of the following is NOT one of the five properties of paradigm-breaking crises? (a) Visibility (b) Undeniability (c) Novelty (d) Cost

(c) The five properties are visibility, undeniability, cost, attribution, and repetition. Novelty is not one of them — in fact, repetition (the opposite of novelty) is a key property, because repeated crises are harder to dismiss than isolated ones.

Q: The LTCM collapse of 1998 involved similar failure modes to the 2008 financial crisis. Why did it fail to prevent the later, larger crisis? (a) LTCM was a deliberate fraud, while 2008 was an honest mistake (b) LTCM lacked sufficient visibility, its costs were limited, and it was an isolated event (c) The economics profession had already reformed after LTCM (d) LTCM involved different types of financial instruments

(b) LTCM lacked visibility (contained within the financial industry), cost (borne by wealthy investors, not the public), and repetition (isolated event). These missing properties meant the lesson could be absorbed without structural change.

Q: What is "normalization of deviance"? (a) When an institution deliberately ignores safety warnings (b) When deviant behavior becomes accepted as a form of institutional rebellion (c) When an institution gradually accepts increasingly risky conditions as normal because nothing bad has happened yet (d) When an institution formally codifies exceptions to its own rules

(c) Diane Vaughan coined the term to describe how NASA gradually accepted O-ring erosion as an acceptable risk. Each successful launch in the presence of a known deviation reinforced the belief that the deviation was safe.

Quiz: Crisis and Correction

Test your understanding of Chapter 19. Try to answer without looking back at the text.

Q1. According to the chapter, why is evidence alone almost never sufficient to change a field's mind?

(a) Because evidence is usually wrong (b) Because each individual piece of counter-evidence can be absorbed by the existing paradigm without forcing a reckoning (c) Because fields don't care about evidence (d) Because crisis always arrives before enough evidence accumulates

Answer

**(b)** Evidence accumulates gradually, and each piece can be explained away — methodological flaws, outlier status, or future research will explain it. This absorption is locally rational, which is what makes it so effective at protecting wrong paradigms.

Q2. The institutional grief cycle described in this chapter follows five stages. What is the correct order?

(a) Anger → denial → bargaining → acceptance → depression (b) Denial → anger → bargaining → depression → acceptance (c) Denial → bargaining → anger → depression → acceptance (d) Anger → denial → depression → bargaining → acceptance

Answer

**(b)** Denial → anger → bargaining → depression → acceptance. The cycle mirrors Kübler-Ross's personal grief stages, adapted to institutional contexts.

Q3. Which of the following is NOT one of the five properties of paradigm-breaking crises?

(a) Visibility (b) Undeniability (c) Novelty (d) Cost

Answer

**(c)** The five properties are visibility, undeniability, cost, attribution, and repetition. Novelty is not one of them — in fact, repetition (the *opposite* of novelty) is a key property, because repeated crises are harder to dismiss than isolated ones.

Q4. The LTCM collapse of 1998 involved similar failure modes to the 2008 financial crisis. Why did it fail to prevent the later, larger crisis?

(a) LTCM was a deliberate fraud, while 2008 was an honest mistake (b) LTCM lacked sufficient visibility, its costs were limited, and it was an isolated event (c) The economics profession had already reformed after LTCM (d) LTCM involved different types of financial instruments

Answer

**(b)** LTCM lacked visibility (contained within the financial industry), cost (borne by wealthy investors, not the public), and repetition (isolated event). These missing properties meant the lesson could be absorbed without structural change.

Q5. What is "normalization of deviance"?

(a) When an institution deliberately ignores safety warnings (b) When deviant behavior becomes accepted as a form of institutional rebellion (c) When an institution gradually accepts increasingly risky conditions as normal because nothing bad has happened yet (d) When an institution formally codifies exceptions to its own rules

Answer

**(c)** Diane Vaughan coined the term to describe how NASA gradually accepted O-ring erosion as an acceptable risk. Each successful launch in the presence of a known deviation reinforced the belief that the deviation was safe.

Q6. What is the key difference between cosmetic correction and genuine correction?

(a) Cosmetic correction is faster; genuine correction takes longer (b) Cosmetic correction changes procedures while genuine correction changes the underlying paradigm (c) Cosmetic correction involves new leadership; genuine correction doesn't (d) Cosmetic correction is always intentional deception

Answer

**(b)** Cosmetic correction addresses symptoms (new rules, procedures, oversight bodies) while preserving the core assumptions and paradigm. Genuine correction changes what the field actually believes, how it trains practitioners, and what it considers valid. The test: does the same failure mode recur within a generation?

Q7. The chapter argues that psychology's replication crisis produced deeper reform than the 2008 financial crisis, despite being a far less dramatic event. What explains this?

(a) Psychologists are more honest than economists (b) The cost of reform in psychology was relatively low, the attribution was clear, and a clear alternative framework (open science) was available (c) The financial crisis wasn't really a crisis at all (d) Psychology had more public pressure for reform than economics

Answer

**(b)** The depth of correction is predicted not by the magnitude of the crisis but by the interaction between crisis properties and field structure — particularly switching cost, defender power, and availability of alternatives. Psychology had lower switching costs, weaker defenders (no external power base like the financial industry's lobbying), and a clear alternative framework.

Q8. Which of the following is a mechanism by which crises are "wasted"?

(a) The crisis is too visible (b) Reform exhaustion — cosmetic reforms consume the institutional appetite for deeper change (c) Too many people remember the crisis (d) The crisis was too costly

Answer

**(b)** The three mechanisms are: the attribution battle (defenders blame execution rather than paradigm), reform exhaustion (cosmetic reforms consume the appetite for change), and generational forgetting (institutional memory fades as participants retire). More visibility and cost make crises *harder* to waste, not easier.

Q9. During the Challenger teleconference, Jerry Mason told Robert Lund to "take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat." This instruction was effective because:

(a) Lund was a weak leader who couldn't stand up to pressure (b) The instruction activated a different set of institutional incentives — management concerns about schedule and contract relationships overrode engineering concerns about safety (c) Mason was Lund's superior and gave a direct order (d) Lund didn't actually believe the O-rings were a problem

Answer

**(b)** The instruction worked because it asked Lund to evaluate the decision using management criteria (schedule, contract, institutional relationships) rather than engineering criteria (safety margins, test data). This is a structural feature — both frames were legitimate within the institution, and the management frame happened to produce the wrong answer. The failure was in the system's inability to ensure that safety criteria took precedence.

Q10. According to the chapter, the biggest danger of crisis-dependent correction is:

(a) It always leads to overcorrection (b) It costs too much money (c) The cost of correction is measured in the damage the crisis inflicts — meaning patients suffer, people die, and institutions fail while waiting for the shock that forces change (d) It makes institutions too cautious

Answer

**(c)** The paradox of crisis-dependent learning is that if evidence alone can't drive change, then the cost of correction includes whatever damage the crisis inflicts. Every year a wrong medical consensus persists, patients suffer. Every year a wrong engineering standard persists, accidents accumulate. This is not an acceptable cost — it is a design flaw in human knowledge production.

Scoring Guide

9-10 correct: Excellent. You have a strong grasp of crisis-driven correction dynamics and can apply the framework analytically.
7-8 correct: Good. Review the sections on the taxonomy of crisis responses and the mechanisms of wasted crises.
5-6 correct: Fair. Revisit sections 19.3 (anatomy of undeniable events) and 19.5 (taxonomy of crisis responses).
Below 5: Re-read the chapter, focusing on the structural framework rather than the historical narratives. The narratives are memorable, but the diagnostic framework is what you need to retain.