Confronting one's boss can be intimidating for anyone, but for first officers co-piloting commercial aircraft, it can be a matter of life or death. A new study finds that first officers who need to correct a captain's mistake often initially rely on indirect methods -- such as hints or problem statements -- rather than explicitly stating what to do.
In addition to the implications for airline safety, the NASA-funded study's findings could be important to future space missions that use multi-cultural crews - and to other high-stress situations requiring teamwork. The study also found differences in the way female pilots communicate with other members of their crews.
"There are advantages and disadvantages to being indirect," said Dr. Ute Fischer, an adjunct assistant professor in the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Literature, Communication and Culture. "By pointing out a problem, the speaker leaves the choice of a corrective action to the hearer. So the speaker tries to minimize imposition on the hearer."
"Such a strategy might be considered more collegial or polite than a bald command," said Dr. Judith Orasanu of NASA's Ames Laboratory. She is collaborating with Fischer.
"However, by being indirect, speakers run the risk of not being heard," Fischer said. "Problem statements may be taken at face value and may not be understood as a request to act. Also, because problem statements exert little pressure, the hearer may not take the speaker's intention sufficiently serious."
A paper based on Fischer and Orasanu's study was recently published in the "Proceedings of the Ninth International Symposium on Aviation Psychology."
Social, gender and cultural differences exist in the way airline crews communicate in both low- and high-risk flight situations, according to this ongoing study.
Apparently, because of their status, airline captains -- both U.S. and European, male and female -- give more than twice the number of commands than first officers. Yet it is often first officers who are in the position of needing to correct a captain's mistake, according to case studies of airline accidents. In Fischer's study, first officers presented with this sort of situation said they would most often use hints. In fact, U.S. first officers were twice as likely as their European counterparts to use this technique.
Though the study showed no differences between male and female pilots in the types of communication most frequently given, it did reveal differences in the structure of the communication. Females -- all Americans in this study -- tended to give more two-part utterances than males: They would state the problem and then give a command or suggestion.
"There are two perspectives on the more complex structure of these utterances," said Fischer, a specialist in cognitive linguistics. "One is that the females are 'excusing' themselves for giving commands by stating the problem. The other perspective is that the females are setting the stage and grounding their directive with the problem statement."
A follow-up study already under way will give insight on the effectiveness of these two-part utterances. Other research indicates that stating the problem before giving a command or other type of communication creates a shared understanding, Fischer said. It gives the hearer better comprehension of the task at hand.
"But in a high risk situation, this more complex talking might not be more effective," Fischer added. "A lot depends on the risk of the situation and the professional setting. Those are questions we will address in the second part of this study."
Several cultural differences also appeared in the current study. For example, European captains were twice as likely to give hints to first officers than were U.S. captains. Meanwhile, U.S. captains were twice as likely to make suggestions for the crew to implement.
Also, European first officers were somewhat more likely to give commands to captains than were U.S. first officers. The Europeans were also about twice as likely to give self-directives than their American counterparts.
"Cultural differences in communication are important to understand because foreign airlines often train their crews with U.S. airlines' crew resource management programs," Fischer explained. "In addition, forthcoming space missions will involve people from various multi-cultural backgrounds. What we don't know is how much cultural predispositions affect communication in a professional setting, particularly in times of stress. We are trying to gain insight into that question in this study."
What is known is that communication problems -- both within aircraft crews and between air and ground crews -- contribute significantly in aircraft incidents and accidents, Fischer said. There are numerous examples, including the crash of an Air Florida jet into the Potomac River in January 1982 because of snow and ice on the airplane.
With so much at stake, Fischer and Orasanu got help from 576 airline captains and first officers -- including 20 females -- from six American and European airlines. They completed questionnaires regarding eight fictional flight scenarios. In the surveys, researchers manipulated the risk level and social implications of the situations. Survey participants were asked what they would initially say to their colleague in each scenario.
Researchers devised a coding scheme and assigned the survey participants' responses to it. The scheme consisted of nine communication types: commands, queries, preferences, hints, crew obligations, crew suggestions, self-directives and permission-seeking questions.
The study also revealed that captains:
- gave commands about 45 percent of the time followed by crew suggestions (±10 percent) and crew obligations (±7 percent).
- asked permission-seeking questions least frequently (±3 percent), followed by preferences (±5 percent) and queries (±6 percent). Researchers found that first officers:
- gave commands (±15 percent) only about half as often as hints (±32 percent) on U.S. airlines.
- asked permission-seeking questions 12 percent of the time versus giving commands 15 percent of the time on U.S. airlines. European first officers were about half as likely to ask permission-seeking questions (±6 percent).
In the follow-up study expected to be completed by spring, researchers are analyzing responses from 60 airline captains and first officers. They rated the effectiveness of various communication types and structures (e.g., commands preceded by problem statements) in fictional flight scenarios.
The results of the studies could have broad implications, said Dr. Ken Knoespel, a professor in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture. Mine workers, oil tanker crews, air traffic controllers, and emergency medical and public safety personnel could benefit from the insights gained in this study, he said.
"In a broader context, NASA research seeks to link space exploration and making the earth more inhabitable," Knoespel said. "In order to live in space, we need to solve some problems on earth and vice versa. Communication is one of those problems. . . . You cannot separate human communication from technology."
MEDIA RELATIONS CONTACTS:
John Toon (404-894-6986);
E-mail: john.toon@edi.gatech.edu;
FAX: (404-894-1826) or
Jane Sanders (404-894-2214) (770-975-1014);
E-mail:
jane.sanders@edi.gatech.edu.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION:
1. Dr. Ute Fischer, Georgia Tech, (404-894-7627); E-mail: ute.fischer@lcc.gatech.edu
2. Dr. Judith Orasanu, NASA-Ames Laboratory, (650-604-3404);
E-mail: jorasanu@mail.arc.nasa.gov
NOTE: Color slides are available from the public relations officers listed above or in 250-dpi JPEG format on the World Wide Web at www.gtri.gatech.edu/res-news/CREW.html.