Personality and Hazardous Judgment Patterns Within A Student Civil Aviation Population

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between personality profiles and hazardous judgment patterns within a student civil aviation population. Thirty subjects receiving private pilot instrnction from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certified flight schools or independent private instrnctor pilots in central Texas successfully completed testing. Two instrnments were employed: the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Form G--Self-Scorable (Briggs & Myers, 1987), and an inventory designed by researchers at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to measure pilot hazardous attitudes (Berlin, et al., 1982). Data analysis was conducted using Pearson's r. While the results provided limited support for the existence of personality/hazardous attitude relationships, they failed to support the research hypothesis at the level of significance established (p<.05). Results from the Embry-Riddle inventory demonstrated strong similarities to those obtained by earlier researchers (Lester & Bombaci, 1984). Type distribution from the MBTI suggested the existence of an aggregate personality profile considerably distinct from the general population at large.