Team leaders and trainees should monitor and adaptively manage their own and teammates' emotional arousal before and during high-stakes simulations¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 3 claims (2 for, 1 against) · 1 study (1 associational), q2 · 1 of 1 report an effect size · 3 claims rest on one study

Description¶

From the finding that physiological synchrony occurs before and during CRM simulations, the authors draw a practical recommendation: individuals training for high-stakes procedures should monitor and manage their own emotions and support teammates' emotions. They suggest that "team leaders might reflect that if they are feeling anxious, members of their team may very well be too", and might down-regulate a climbing negative, arousing state like anxiety or frustration before continuing. The recommendation extends to the pre-simulation period, when residents may be anticipating the scenario even while engaged in other tasks.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Awareness that emotional arousal fluctuations are shared across team members, per the study's PS findings

Constraints¶

• The recommendation rests on preliminary, underpowered correlational findings from 9 teams in one simulation centre

Target Learners¶

• medical residents training for high-stakes crisis management

Target Learning Goals¶

• emotion monitoring and regulation in team-based high-stakes performance

Claims¶

• During-simulation physiological synchrony is positively correlated with team leaders' CRM performance scores (preliminary, 9 teams) [+W]
• Physiological synchrony is detectable among medical resident teams both before and during CRM simulation training, exceeding surrogate-data chance levels [+W]
• Regression models of PS on CRM performance could not be conducted because four regression assumptions were not met [-W]

Related Strategies¶

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Lucia Patino Melo, Sebastian Wallot, Keerat Grewal, Matthew Moreno, Osamu Nomura, Jason M. Harley. (2026). Physiological synchrony amongst medical residents during crisis management simulation training and a video-based assessment of leaders' performance. Learning and Instruction 102 (2026) 102302. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2025.102302