feel can change how you think and that can change what you say and do. The more intense your emotional state, the more extreme and illogical your behavior will be. Emotions exert strong influences on judgment and choices. The stronger the emotion, the more limited your capacity to focus on other thoughts and activities. Safety can unknowingly be compromised. Your emotional reaction increases thoughts that not related to what you are doing; as a result, you cannot recall what you have done or not done. When you suppress what you truly feel, you exert more energy towards not reacting and that leaves less energy for the routine day-to- day tasks. This specifically leads to emotional exhaustion, otherwise known as burnout. Performance-shaping factors (PSFs) are elements in aviation’s human reliability analysis to analyzing accident information. Both internal emotional states and stress levels are part of these PSFs, which encompass
• Anger (causing individuals to embrace risk)
• Worry and frustration • Fear (causing individuals to avoid uncertainty and choose the sure thing)
• Other emotions that contribute to sub-optimal performance
These cause your thoughts to shift to a more narrow attention focus and prevent you from noticing unforeseen events or identifying alternatives. Your decision-making ability is impaired and safety may be forfeited.
CONCLUSION – WHAT THIS
MEANS FOR YOU Like your aircraft, your brain responds in a systematic fashion. This response is not always the safest solution. We use logic to justify our actions and unquestionably accept this line of reasoning. Mental diversions can impede safety and cause a fight- or-flight reaction. We can override our brain’s instinctive reaction or base our responses using the brain’s natural reasoning process. The error chain only needs one broken link to circumvent the accident. Safety is about managing risk. In order to manage risk, you manage behaviors. In order to manage behaviors, you manage thoughts. In order to manage thoughts, you manage emotions. In order to manage emotions, you understand the root cause.
Dr. Shari Frisinger is a behavior analyst, works with aviation companies & flight departments to maintain
optimum mental health and be smart about what affects safety, productivity and morale. Her human factors programs and consulting raise awareness of potentially disruptive or unsafe behaviors, and techniques to ease conflict and enhance safety. She is an NBAA PDP provider, a member of Aviation Psychology Association, and university faculty teaching leadership courses. She has presented behavioral safety programs to numerous flight departments and aviation companies. For more information, visit
www.ShariFrisinger.com or call (281) 992-4136.
Avers, K., & Johnson, W. B. (2011). A Review of Federal Aviation Administration Fatigue Research. Aviation Psychology and Applied Human Factors, 1, 2, 87-98.
Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2001). Fear, anger, and risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1, 146-59.
O’Hare, D. (2006). Cognitive Functions and Performance Shaping Factors in Aviation Accidents and Incidents. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 16, 2, 145-156.
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