EFFECTS OF PEER PRESSURE TO FLIGHT SAFETY

INTRODUCTION

1.         In aviation world, in spite of its beauty and interesting, it is also extremely hostile. It is full of stresses, false dilemmas and advice that can impact our judgement and decision making. To function safely and effectively in this environment, and to apply our airmanship skills appropriately, we must understand the multiple external factors that impact upon our decision making, some of which come from unlikely source, our friends and associate, which we call it peer pressure.

2.         Peers play an important role in our normal daily life. We can define the peer pressure as a suggestive social presence that prompts are to conform to others, to be part of a group. It is lies in two fundamental needs of all human being:

            a.         The desire to be liked and accepted.

            b.         The desire to be right.

3.         Peer pressure always asks for action but sometimes it suggests inactive compliance. It can be obvious or subtle, verbal or non-verbal and its origin may be personnel or organizational. Sometimes peer pressure is unintentional, while other times it is carefully calculated. We can say that, peer pressure is a powerful force that can bend judgement. In aviation, peer pressure often manifests itself in poor decision making but sometimes can be positive force as well.

SOURCES OF PEER PRESSURE

4.         There are certain key sources of peer pressure, which have definite influences on our flight discipline. Peer pressure comes from a variety of sources including self, family, friends, colleagues, supervisors, air traffic controllers and other aviators we don't even know.

5.         They can distort the relative importance of the flight mission, effect to our own capabilities and limitation and many other aspects of our normal decision making process.

HOW PEER PRESSURE WORKS

6.         Peer pressure effects for failed flight discipline in six principle ways:

            a.         It acts through pilots' personnel pride.

            b.         It places unwarranted pressure by creating added importance to complete a flight          mission (i.e. mission weighting).

            c.         Through actively advocating poor flight discipline.

            d.         By the mere presence of family or friends, pilot often forsake good judgement to show their prowess.

            e.         Through unhealthy competition with ourselves.

            f.          Through the pressure from above or our seniors.

7.         Any of these types of peer pressure can result in a sudden lost of judgement and poor flight discipline, and when they occur simultaneously the situation can become extremely difficult to overcome unless we are aware of the pressures in advance and make conscious and deliberate steps to avoid them.

PRIDE OF PERFORMANCE

8.         It is a condition where the pilot feels the pressure to do something as well or better than his peer. Under normal circumstances, this can healthy as a little competition can cause improvement on both sides. But when taken to extremes, it can be destructive. In many cases, the peers may not even know that they have played a part in our decision making.

9.         Sometimes this type of peer pressure occurs by simply having someone present to observe our actions and performance. No one likes to fly badly, especially in front of a friend or colleague. The desire to 'hack it' is often increased in this situation, even when things begin to be out of control.

MISSION WEIGHTING

10.       Pilots sometimes fly by different set of rules, depending on his perceived relative importance of the mission or task. Peer pressure can cause misprioritisation of tasks, where mission accomplishment is stressed above safety. This is due to many external factors such as home sickness, pressure from family or supervisors which can influence the pilot to complete the task as soon as possible. If the task can be completed early, he can return back early. The pilot might take a risk such as take more load compared to permissible load, continue flying in a bad weather or exceed the daily flying hour's limitation for a reason just to complete the task as soon as possible.

11.       Another form of mission weighting occurs when an instructor is over zealous in attempting to accomplish training objectives. When this occurs, the lesson left with the student may not be the one that is intended.

ACTIVE ADVOCACY

12.       Peers can often influence poor judgement through the power of their own personalities and suggestion. It occurs when a peer actively advocates doing something out of the ordinary. As an example someone asks to see some aerobatics or to over-fly a friend's house which having a party.

13.       Sometimes this type of peer pressure comes from a source such as air traffic controller which requested us to accept a marginal clearance during approach which might cause a mishap or from our crew itself which so engrossed in the undesired conversation in the cockpit which cause us to forget to fly the aircraft or to concentrate in flying.

           

COMPETING WITH OURSELVES

14.       This is perhaps the toughest peer to deal. Most pilots strive to continually improve their performance, trying to better his last performance. Although it might be difficult to visualise our ideal self as a peer, in many ways we are our most demanding critics. Unfortunately, for some of us, this can lead to unrealistic expectations and poor judgement.

PRESSURE FROM ABOVE

15.       Although pressure from a senior-ranking aviator is not technically peer pressure in the purest sense of the word peer, it does occur often enough in our aviation world, especially in light of the current emphasis on breaking down rank and seniority barriers in the cockpit through good CRM practices.

16.       Another example of pressure from  above is the situation where there is a pressure to fulfil the monthly training hours that has already been allocated to squadron by the organisation policy, especially at the end of the month. Pilot will take a risk to fly the training sortie to complete the training hours even though in the marginal weather.

17.       Many aviators, when confronted with pressure from above will feel that they must simply 'live with it' because of concerns for the continued employment or promotion within the system. But living may not be part of the picture if it gets too bad.

RESISTING PEER PRESSURE

18.       We have seen that the six types of peer pressure can have profound impact in our flight discipline but how to resist it?

19.       In order to resist poor advice and peer pressure, we must first have a clear picture in our own minds of what constitutes right from wrong as it relates to our particular moment in time. In aviation, we call this situation awareness. A pilot must consider dozens of factors when making a call to resist or go along with peer pressure. Once again, to resist unwanted peer pressure, we must possess a clean picture of airmanship and hold any potentially hazardous suggestion up to the light of true airmanship to determine whether or not we should accept or reject a course of action.

20.       In addition to the desire to conform, people also have a desire to be unique and maintain their individuality. If everybody's doing it (practising one or more forms of poor flight discipline), then they can assert their unique individuality by standing alone for higher standard. We can distinguish ourselves by understanding what good discipline is and by refusing to be part of the crowd. Stand for something positive.

21.       Without a clear picture of airmanship in our own minds, we tend to follow what our peers are performing or advocating us by a questionable course of action. To fight this, we must have our principled decision-making. We must determine what we feel about ourselves. This is the internal picture of what we are and will serve as a background for standing up against a trend. Uncompromising discipline can be an unpopular path to walk in some aviation circles.

PEER PRESSURE AS A POSITIVE ASPECT OF FLIGHT DISCIPLINE

22.       Peer pressure can also become a positive aspect in flight discipline. As mentioned earlier, a little competition with a good discipline and good safety attitude can create improvement on both sides. If we hold ourselves to the highest possible standards, we can become a conduit for good airmanship to others.

CONCLUSION

23.       We have seen that pressure from peers is very critical in our judgement and decision making. It can give a benefit or disaster. It is all depends to ourselves, how we treat the pressure from peers.

24.       We can make a difference. Perception of peers about us is important in flight discipline. We have an impact on other flyers even if we don't want to. Every action, every inaction, contribute to a culture which either actively promotes or decays flight discipline. We should all realise that we are swayed by the actions and words of others.

25.   "  We also have to realise that we have the option or better said the responsibility to choose a different path from that of the crowd if we feel our flight discipline may be at risk. It's not just a matter of integrity. It's a matter of survival. The safety of our flight is depends on us alone, not others or our peers."