Relating Personality with Stress Coping Strategies among Student Pilots in a Collegiate Flight Training Program

This paper describes how aviation psychologists have long been interested in studying the personality characteristics of successful and safe pilots. To date, much of the research on pilot personality has involved the use of military aircrew. Few studies have examined the role of personality in civil aviation pilots’ performance and stress coping during flight training. Therefore, little is known about the personality profiles of commercial and general aviation pilots, or the relationship between personality dimensions and the use of different strategies for dealing with flight-related stressors. Given the recurrent cutbacks in the U.S. military, an increasing number of commercial pilots in the U.S. are now being trained and recruited from the private sector rather than from the Armed Forces. Consequently, a better understanding of the personality profiles and stress coping strategies of pilots entering civil aviation training programs may help develop better selection, training, and safety programs for the civil aviation industry. To address these issues, the authors administered a personality test and a stress coping questionnaire (COPE) to first-year students (n=50) enrolled in the Professional Pilot Training program at the University of Illinois’ Institute of Aviation. Results revealed that certain personality and stress-coping profiles of student pilots differed significantly from previously published norms within the population. Personality characteristics were differentially and significantly related to specific stress coping strategies adopted by student pilots. These findings support the notion that civil aviation pilots have different personality characteristics than non-pilots. In addition, they demonstrate that such differences can be associated with important stress coping strategies that may contribute to flight-training performance and success within civil aviation. Additional research is needed to increase the sample size used in this study and to track pilots’ career performance long term.

• 
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

  Human Factors Division, Institute of Aviation
  1 Airport Road
  Savoy, IL  United States  61874
• Authors:
  • Dillinger, Tracy G
  • Wiegmann, Douglas A
  • Taneja, Narinder
• Conference:
  • 12th International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, 2003
  • Location: Dayton OH, United States
  • Date: 2003-4-14 to 2003-4-17
• Publication Date: 2003

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: 4p
• Monograph Title: 12th International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, 2003

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air pilots; Aircraft pilotage; Aviation safety; Civil aviation; College students; Flight training; Human factors in crashes; Personality; Stress (Psychology); Training
• Uncontrolled Terms: Pilot training
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Education and Training; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01342500
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 23 2011 9:06AM