Anticipated Negative Emotions Effect on Incident Involvement Among Civil Pilots

Cognitive Style and Flight Experience Influence on Confirmation Bias in Lost Procedures

BACKGROUND: Accident analysis and empirical research have shown that the decision-making process of pilots after becoming lost is adversely affected by confirmation bias; this constitutes a serious threat to aviation safety. However, the underlying mechanism of confirmation bias in the context of lost procedures are still unclear.METHODS: This study used scenario-based map-reading tasks to conduct two experiments to explore the mechanism of confirmation bias in the lost procedures. In Experiment 1, 34 undergraduate students and 28 flying cadets were enrolled in a formal experiment to examine the effects of verbal-imagery cognitive style, experience level, and their interaction on confirmation bias. In Experiment 2, we further explored the influence of strategy as a core component of experience on confirmation bias with 26 flying cadets.RESULTS: The study found that individuals were subject to confirmation bias in lost procedures. Visualizers (M = 0.78, SD = 0.75) were almost twice as likely to select the disconfirmatory features than verbalizers (M = 0.37, SD = 0.49). Visualizers exhibited a lower degree of confirmation bias than verbalizers, and experience helps verbalizers to reduce their degree of confirmation bias. The protective effect of experience mainly lies in individuals’ choice of strategy.DISCUSSION: Future aviation safety campaigns could be aimed at adopting a candidate selection process that focuses more on psychological attributes by testing for cognitive style, and enriching individual experience through adequate training. Such measures would reduce confirmation bias.Xu Q, Wang M, Wang H, Liu B, You X, Ji M. Cognitive style and flight experience influence on confirmation bias in lost procedures. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2022; 93(8):618–626.

Mindfulness and burnout among Chinese civil pilots: Mediation through fatigue and proactive coping

We explored the possibility of a relationship between mindfulness and burnout among Chinese civil pilots, and investigated the mediating effects of fatigue and proactive coping in this relationship. Participants were 319 civil pilots employed by China Southern Airlines, who completed a survey. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized parallel mediation model. Results show that the direct effect of mindfulness on burnout was not significant, but mindfulness had an important preventative effect on burnout. Furthermore, fatigue and proactive coping completely mediated the effect of mindfulness on burnout. Consequently, our findings corroborate the predictive role of fatigue and proactive coping in mediating the indirect effect that mindfulness exerted on burnout. Theoretical implications and practical recommendations for pilots' mindfulness training practice and fatigue risk management systems are discussed.