Gary Klein, in his book Sources of Power, tells a story of a study he and his wife conducted with CPR instructors. They created video tapes of people performing CPR. Some were novices who had recently taken a CPR course, and some were experienced paramedics with years of performing CPR in the field.

The videos were then showed to three groups – novices, paramedics, and CPR instructors who had never administered the technique on a real victim in adverse conditions. The groups were then asked to choose who they would want to perform CPR on them if their life depended on it.

The results showed an interesting difference in perception. The paramedics and novices mostly chose the paramedics, but the instructors chose the novices. The paramedics did not do all the steps as they are taught in the class, for example measuring exactly where to put their hands. The paramedics worked quickly, but in a way that appeared sloppy to the instructors.

Tags: Psychology