Politicians who fail to take decisive action on migration, terrorism or Brexit may be suffering from “decision inertia” say psychologists.

Dr Nicola Power of Lancaster University said this “behavioural freezing” involves constantly thinking about whether to commit to, refuse or avoid the choice at hand.

“Option A is bad, option B is worse, but the option of doing nothing is worst of all.”

This is illustrated in the paradox of “Buridan’s ass”, where a donkey who is equally thirsty and hungry dies when placed between hay and water since the animal cannot make a choice between the two.

She said: “Decision inertia is characteristic of critical incidents as negative consequences do not only arise from poor choices, but can also arise if one fails to take any action at all and the situation worsens.

“Decision-makers do not have the luxury of avoiding their choice, but still feel unable to make one, resulting in intense, albeit redundant, deliberation over their choice for no positive gain, contributing to huge delays or failures to take any action at all.”

This could include emergency responders reacting to a terrorist attack, political parties responding to the migrant crisis, or nation states deliberating over the Brexit deal.

“All these choices are characterised by uncertainty, conflicting information and opinions, and are irreversible decisions.”

Decision inertia may explain why the authorities were slow to respond, for example, in the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004, the Haiti Earthquake in 2010 and the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe.

Psychologists have suggested that decision inertia is likely to increase when:

· Information related to the decision is ambiguous, making it hard to identify or distinguish between possible choices eg “the decision triggered by Brexit on free movement of people has produced multiple contradictory predictions on future migration figures.

· there is uncertainty about the social or team structure eg the roles and responsibilities of the various partners involved in the Brexit deal have been poorly identified, arguably contributing to the ongoing prolonged and redundant deliberation over the Brexit deal

· a task involves contradictory goals eg “EU states deliberating over the refugee crisis might feel conflicted between humanitarian goals to support displaced refugees against nationalist goals to protect the resources of their nation state”

· individuals are less experienced in the decision domain, meaning they are less able to generate insightful solutions in the face of uncertainty

· individuals have indecisive personalities or inappropriate and inflexible decision-making styles

Dr Power says more research is needed to understand decision inertia in complex work domains. This will help us to develop training solutions through, for example, scenario-based learning to support practitioners who must make complex choices and protect against decision inertia.