PIA Training Centre (PTC) Module 9 HUMAN FACTORS

Category A/B1/B2 Sub Module 9.3 Social Psychology

MODULE 9
Sub Module 9.3

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

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Contents
SECTION 5: PEER PRESSURE---------------------------------------- 11
SECTION 1: INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITY------------------------------ 1 5.1 EXPERIMENTS IN CONFORMITY--------------------------------------- 11
1.1 INTRODUCTION ------------------------------------------------------------ 1 5.2 COUNTERING PEER PRESSURE AND CONFORMITY -------------- 12
SECTION 2: RESPONSIBILITY ----------------------------------------- 4 SECTION 6: MOTIVATION ------------------------------------------ 13
2.1 RESPONSIBILITY: INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP -------------------------- 4 6.1 MASLOWS HIERARCHY OF NEEDS ----------------------------------- 13
2.2 WORKING AS AN INDIVIDUAL OR AS A GROUP--------------------- 4 6.2 DE-MOTIVATION---------------------------------------------------------- 17
2.3 INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY -------------------------------------------- 4 SECTION 7: CULTURE ISSUES --------------------------------------- 18
2.4 GROUP OR TEAM RESPONSIBILITY------------------------------------- 5 7.1 SUMMARY------------------------------------------------------------------ 19
SECTION 3: TEAMWORKING ----------------------------------------- 6
3.1 TEAMWORK (GROUP DECISION MAKING) --------------------------- 6
CONFORMITY ------------------------------------------------------------------- 7
COMPLIANCE ------------------------------------------------------------------- 7
RISKY SHIFT --------------------------------------------------------------------- 7
GROUP DURATON ------------------------------------------------------------- 7
SECTION 4: MANAGEMENT, SUPERVISION, LEADERSHIP,
MOTIVATION & PEER PRESSURE ------------------------------------ 9
4.1 TEAM LEADER/MANAGER ----------------------------------------------- 9
4.2 THE INDIVIDUAL -----------------------------------------------------------10
4.3 SALARY PACKAGE --------------------------------------------------------- 10
4.4 SHIFTS------------------------------------------------------------------------10
4.5 TEAMWORK ----------------------------------------------------------------10

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SECTION 1: INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITY
1.1 INTRODUCTION
It was once said if all members of any social group acted alike,
thought alike and felt alike, personality would not exist. This
statement underlines one of the most important facts about
people, namely, that each of us (even identical twins) is
psychologically different in one way or another from our fellow
man. This variation constitutes what we recognise in each other
as differences in our personalities.
Our personal differences are believed to be affected by our
genes, our environment and our social interaction. We translate
information from our senses, after using previous experience.
This may be stored in our memory as schemata (plans) and as
memory processes the information may change in its
perception. When we form impressions of other people, we do
not automatically pay attention to all the information which we
get from them. Our schemata lead us to assume certain things
about them, based on previous information in the memory,
which may be biased.
Personality
Two terms are often encountered when talking about a persons
personality, these are:
Character
Temperament
Both terms have sometimes been used interchangeably with the
word personality. Furthermore it is generally assumed that each
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covers a somewhat different aspect of personality. The word
character has two slightly different, though related, meanings.
One has moral connections and describes behaviour, thus
indicating a good or bad character. The second meaning
considers character from the point of view of its strength or
quality.
For example:
A weak character being considered as someone with poor
impulse control.
Temperament has also been used to guide personality i.e. if a
person is hot tempered, sweet tempered, and hes
temperamental.
Personality is the term used to embrace all those stable
behavioural characteristics that are associated with an
individual and ones personality is extremely important in
determining the relationship with others.
We are all used to the common descriptive words and phrases
used to describe individuals:
For example:
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a jolly chap
a daredevil
a good sport
a sour faced skinflint
a good listener

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These terms, however, are unscientific and too general for use
in assessing personality with any degree of accuracy.
Assessing Personality
We all make assessments of personality in any social
encounter. Quick first impressions are made by their
appearance and dress. The persons physical build also affects
our perception of personality. Short, fat people are seen as easy
going, sociable and self indulgent. Tall thin people as fragile,
introspective, sensitive and nervous. Muscular, square
shouldered people are seen as restless, energetic and
insensitive. We have also heard of villains being described as
thin lipped, murderers having close set eyes and thugs as
heavy set. These are relearned preconceptions from our long
term memory and are colouring our true assessment of the
individuals personality. Personality should be assessed by
various techniques such as interviews, projective tests and
questionnaires.
Classification of Personality
Early Greeks placed people into four groups of differing
temperamental and emotional make up. These are:
Melancholic sad, doleful.
Phlegmatic slow, stolid.
Choleric easily moved to anger.
Sanguine confident, cool.
Various psychologists have attempted to classify, explain and
alter human personality traits which may be innate and in any
case are acquired very early in life. They are deep-seated
characteristics which constitute the essence of a person.
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They are stable and very resistant to change. Attempts by
psychotherapy to modify personality distortions seem to have
very limited success, even when applied over many years.
Personality, attitudes and beliefs are intangible in as much as
they cannot be seen or studied directly but only inferred from
what a person says or does. Personality may be classified in a
number of dimensions. The major dimensions may be said to
be extraversion and anxiety. Other major traits such as warmth
and sociability, impulsivity, tough-mindedness, dominance,
stability and boldness will all contribute to the overall personality
of the individual.
At the very basic level extraversion may be associated with
boldness, impulsive behaviour and sociability. Anxiety is
normally linked to emotional instability, tension and
suspiciousness. As extraversion and anxiety are not related to
one another, some people may be anxious and extroverted,
others anxious and introverted.
The results from a series of tests or questionnaires may be
plotted on a simple two dimensional graph of personality with
axes of extraversion and anxiety. Most people will be about the
average in both dimensions.
As deviation from the average increases so the characteristics
of that personality become more pronounced. For example the
anxious extravert will be regarded as aggressive and
changeable, the stable introvert as thoughtful and controlled.
An anxious introvert will seem sober and pessimistic, stable
extraverts will be seen as responsive and easy going.
The anxious extrovert is likely to be a risk taker. The anxious
introvert will be more rigid and sober in behaviour and when
confronted with an emergency may not be able to perform. The
aircraft engineer, on average, has been found to be a stable
introvert, being thoughtful and controlled, not likely to take risks.
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SECTION 2: RESPONSIBILITY
2.1 RESPONSIBILITY: INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP
Being an aircraft maintenance engineer is a responsible job.
Clearly, the engineer plays a part in the safe and efficient
passage of the travelling public when they use aircraft. Within
aircraft maintenance, responsibility should be spread across all
those who play a part in the activity. This ranges from the
accountable manager who formulates policy, through
management that set procedures, to supervisors, teams of
engineers and individuals within those teams. Flight crew also
play a part as they are responsible for carrying out pre-flight
checks and walk-around and highlighting aircraft faults to
maintenance personnel.
2.2 WORKING AS AN INDIVIDUAL OR AS A GROUP
Traditionally, in the maintenance engineering environment,
responsibility has been considered in terms of the individual
rather than the group or team. This is historical, and has much
to do with the manner in which engineers are licensed and the
way in which work is certified. This has both advantages and
disadvantages. The main advantage to individual responsibility
is that an engineer understands clearly that one or more tasks
have been assigned to him and it is his job to do them (it can
also be a strong incentive to an engineer to do the work
correctly knowing that he will be the one held responsible if
something goes wrong). The main disadvantage of any
emphasis upon personal responsibility is that this may overlook
the importance of working together as a cohesive team or group
to achieve goals.
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In practice, aircraft maintenance engineers are often assigned
to groups or teams in the workplace. These may be shift teams,
or smaller groups within a shift. A team may be made up of
various engineering trades, or be structured around aircraft
types or place of work (e.g. a particular hangar). Although
distinct tasks may be assigned to individuals within a team, the
responsibility for fulfilling overall goals would fall on the entire
team. If someone is considered responsible, they are liable to
be called to account as being in charge or control of, or
answerable for something.
2.3 INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY
All aircraft maintenance engineers are skilled individuals having
undertaken considerable training. They work in a highly
professional environment in the UK and generally have
considerable pride in their work and its contribution to air safety.
All individuals, regardless of their role, grade or qualifications
should work in a responsible manner. This includes not only
Licensed Aircraft Engineers (LAEs), but non-licensed staff.
The certifying engineer shall be responsible for ensuring that
work is performed and recorded in a satisfactory manner...
Likewise, non-certifying technicians also have a responsibility in
the maintenance process. An organization approved in
accordance with EASA part 145 must establish the competence
of every person, whether directly involved in hands-on
maintenance or not. Regulatory Authorities previously ruled that
an organisation can make provision on maintenance records or
work sheets for the mechanic(s) involved to sign for the work.
Whilst this is not the legally required certification under the
requirements of EASA part145, it provides the traceability to
those who were involved in the job.
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The LAE is then responsible for any adjustment or functional
test and the required maintenance records are satisfied before
making the legal certification.
2.4 GROUP OR TEAM RESPONSIBILITY
Group responsibility has its advantages and disadvantages. The
advantages are that each member of the group ought to feel
responsible for the output of that group, not just their own output
as an individual, and ought to work towards ensuring that the
whole product is safe. This may involve cross-checking others
work (even when not strictly required), politely challenging
others if you think that something is not quite right, etc.
The disadvantage of group responsibility is that it can potentially
act against safety, with responsibility being devolved to such an
extent that no-one feels personally responsible for safety
(referred to as diffusion of responsibility). Here, an individual, on
his own, may take action but, once placed within a group
situation, he may not act if none of the other group members do
so, each member of the group or team assuming that someone
else will do it.
Social psychologists have carried out experiments whereby a
situation was contrived in which someone was apparently in
distress, and noted who came to help. If a person was on their
own, they were far more likely to help than if they were in a pair
or group. In the group situation, each person felt that it was not
solely his responsibility to act and assumed that someone else
would do so.
Other recognized phenomena associated with group or team
working and responsibility for decisions and actions which
aircraft maintenance engineers should be aware of are:
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Inter-group conflict in which, situations evolve where a
small group may act cohesively as a team, but rivalries
may arise between this team and others (e.g. between
engineers and planners, between shifts, between teams
at different sites, etc.). This may have implications in
terms of responsibility, with teams failing to share
responsibility between them. This is particularly pertinent
to change of responsibility at shift handovers, where
members of the outgoing shift may feel no moral
responsibility for waiting for the incoming shift members
to arrive and giving a verbal handover in support of the
written information on the work cards or task sheets,
whereas they might feel such responsibility when
handing over tasks to others within their own shift.
Group polarization is the tendency for groups to make
decisions that are more extreme than the individual
members initial positions. At times, group polarization
results in more cautious decisions. Alternatively, in other
situations, a group may arrive at a course of action that
is riskier than that which any individual member might
pursue. This is known as risky shift. Another example of
group polarization is groupthink in which the desire of
the group to reach unanimous agreement overrides any
individual impulse to adopt proper, rational (and
responsible) decision-making procedures.
Social loafing has been coined to reflect the tendency for
some individuals to work less hard on a task when they
believe others are working on it. In other words, they
consider that their own efforts will be pooled with that of
other group members and not seen in isolation.
Responsibility is an important issue in aircraft
maintenance engineering, and ought to be addressed
not only by licensing, regulations and procedures, but
also by education and training, attempting to engender a
culture of shared, but not diffused, responsibility.
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SECTION 3: TEAMWORKING

3.1 TEAMWORK (GROUP DECISION MAKING)

It is generally accepted that the decision reached by a group will

be better than the average decision made by individuals within
the group, although this might take longer. The group decision
will, however, seldom improve on the problem solving ability of
the ablest group member. From this point of view, there may be
a valid reason to have the maximum number of the highest
trained personnel with vast experience of aircraft maintenance,
on all the companys shifts. However, this is realistically not
practical, with the cost of manpower etc.

When a group are discussing and arguing on the solution to a

problem, before coming to an agreement, there are a number of
factors which will affect the group decision.

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People like to conform; non-conformity is stress inducing. To conform to

a group is a way of minimising stress. People do not normally wish to be
seen as the odd one out. Individuals will accept group opinions and
attitudes. The readiness to conform differs between sexes, nationalities
and cultures. Sometimes this group decision may be against the
CONFORMITY
individuals better judgement and he may feel pressurised, leading to
stress. This is known as PEER PRESSURE.

Peer Pressure is helped by the team when it is motivated, close-knit, well

managed and supportive of the individual. This is not always achievable.

This is the term used to describe an individuals likelihood of complying

with a request. If a large and unreasonable request is made, there is a
COMPLIANCE greater likelihood of it being complied with if it has been preceded either
by an even more outrageous request that has been denied, or if a
smaller more reasonable request has already been accepted.

If a group is asked to consider a problem they will usually come to a

decision that is more risky than the average decision made by individual
RISKY SHIFT members. If the individual members are bold, daring personalities, such
a combination will make an unduly bold outcome. Hence the name Risky
Shift.
When a team are kept together for a long period of time they come to
know each others habits as well as their strengths and weaknesses.
This may be an advantage until, say, a team member falls ill. The new
GROUP DURATON
team member will be unaware of any signals or shortened procedures
which the team has adopted. This may lead to a misunderstanding and
a potential accident.

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Improving Group Decision Making

Guidelines can be given to improve decision making. Some of

these are given below:

Avoid arguing for your personal judgements. Approach

the task on the basis of logic.

Avoid changing your mind only in order to reach

agreement or avoid conflict. Support only solutions with
which you are able to agree.

Avoid conflict reducing techniques such as a majority

vote or a middle course strategy.

View differences of opinion as helpful rather than a

hindrance in decision making.

When these guidelines are used then a group will produce a

better performance than another group not using the guidelines.

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SECTION 4: MANAGEMENT, SUPERVISION, LEADERSHIP,
MOTIVATION & PEER PRESSURE
4.1 TEAM LEADER/MANAGER
The team should include everyone from the cleaners to top
management. If a person works for the company, their objective
is the same a safe aircraft full of fare-paying passengers with
their flight on time.
Avoid giving any indication of your own opinion or ideas
at the outset. A team member with a different idea may
be reluctant to air it if it seems to contradict the captain.
Do make a point of soliciting the ideas of other crew
members openly. In particular encourage them to
express any doubts or objections to a particular course
of action. Always ensure that the potential problems or
dangers are fully aired.

The team leader should encourage the idea of team making for When the leader has made a decision, the reasons for
reasons previously discussed. Team meetings should be held arriving at that decision should be explained if there is
from time to time to discuss:- time. Failure to do so will make the crew members feels
that their ideas have been ignored, with the result that, in
Working conditions the future, they will not be at all keen to put forward
Past problems proposals.
Company performance/team performance
Future programme and plans
Any anticipated future problems
Any competent business

Problems of a private nature should be in confidence.

When a leader is heading a meeting to reach the best decision

and to maintain the morale of the team, the following principles
should be followed:

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4.2 THE INDIVIDUAL For some, promotion/progression is important, so firms should

From previous chapters we can see human behaviour in the
workplace can be affected by a wide number of causes. It is
difficult to quantify what affects who and by how much. An event
may affect one person adversely whilst the same event may not
affect another in any way. The amount of adverse affect will
also depend on how often a particular event happens and on
the state of mind of the person at the time.
For Example:
There being no soap in the washroom it may affect some
more than others it gets a bit tiresome when there has not
been any soap for several days it is doubly annoying when
you have very dirty hands and have a particular need to have
especially clean hands before leaving work.
This is just one event but the general parameters can apply to
many other situations harassment, spares problems,
promotion etc.
For the engineer to be happy and have a highly motivated
attitude to work we must consider a number of factors that might
affect him. Any one or more of these factors will have a
motivation/de-motivation effect.
Expectations It is important that if a person has ambitions in
terms of promotion/progression, then he/she should have
expectations of realising them.
have in place a worker/supervisor/management structure to
allow progression for those that have the desire to develop their
talents. For small firms this may not be so easy.
4.3 SALARY PACKAGE
Money is always a good motivator. If the overall salary package
is good it goes a long way to ensuring a happy worker. Salary
is related to expectations and can include:
Basic salary
Overtime working/overtime rates
Pension schemes
Relocation expenses
Share certificate schemes
Private health care schemes
Perks such as free flights
4.4 SHIFTS
We can see, from our Circadian rhythms, shift work can affect
our sleeping patterns. This can lead to fatigue, stress and, in
the long term, health problems; a strong de-motivator.
4.5 TEAMWORK
As previously discussed, a close-knit, well managed, motivated
team with supportive management will have a high morale. The
team leader should encourage teamwork and team
responsibility.

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SECTION 5: PEER PRESSURE
In the working environment of aircraft maintenance, there are
many pressures brought to bear on the individual engineer. We
have already discussed the influence of the organization, of
responsibility and motivational drives. In addition to these, there
is the possibility that the aircraft maintenance engineer will
receive pressure at work from those that work with him. This is
known as peer pressure.
For example, an individual engineer may feel that there is
pressure to cut corners in order to get an aircraft out by a
certain time, in the belief that this is what his colleagues would
do under similar circumstances. There may be no actual
pressure from management to cut corners, but subtle pressure
from peers, e.g. taking the form of comments such as You
dont want to bother checking the manual for that. You do it like
this would constitute peer pressure.
Peer pressure thus falls within the area of conformity.
Conformity is the tendency to allow ones opinions, attitudes,
actions and even perceptions to be affected by prevailing
opinions, attitudes, actions and perceptions.
5.1 EXPERIMENTS IN CONFORMITY
Asch carried out several experiments investigating the nature of
conformity, in which he asked people to judge which of lines A,
B & C was the same length as line X. (see Figure 3.1). He
asked this question under different conditions:
Where the individual was asked to make the judgment
on his own
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Where the individual carried out the task after a group of
7-9 confederates of Asch and all judged that line A was
the correct choice. Of course, the real participant did not
know the others were stooges
In the first condition, very few mistakes were made (as would be
expected of such a simple task with an obvious answer). In the
latter condition, on average, participants gave wrong answers
on one third of the trials by agreeing with the confederate
majority Clearly, participants yielded to group pressure and
agreed with the incorrect group finding (however, it is worth
mentioning that there were considerable Peer pressure is the
actual or perceived pressure which an individual may feel, to
conform to what he believes that his peers or colleagues
expect. he leader should encourage loyalty to the team and
Company. Ideally all employees should be Company Men
working towards the betterment of that Company.
Further research indicated that conformity does not occur with
only one confederate (as then it is a case of my word against
yours). However, it is necessary to have only three
confederates to one real participant to attain the results that
Asch found with 7- 9 confederates.
The degree, to which an individuals view is likely to be affected
by conformity or peer pressure, depends on many factors,
including:
Culture (people from country x tend to conform more
than those from country y)
Gender (men tend to conform less than women)
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Self-esteem (a person with low self-esteem is likely to
conform more)
Familiarity of the individual with the subject matter (a
person is more likely to conform to the majority view if he
feels that he knows less about the subject matter than
they do)
The expertise of the group members (if the individual
respects the group or perceives them to be very
knowledgeable he will be more likely to conform to their
views)
The relationship between the individual and group
members (conformity increases if the individual knows
the other members of the group, i.e. it is a group of
peers)
Fig 3.1 An experiment to illustrate conformity
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5.2 COUNTERING PEER PRESSURE AND CONFORMITY
The influence of peer pressure and conformity on an individuals
views can be reduced considerably if the individual airs their
views publicly from the outset. However, this can be very
difficult: after Aschs experiments, when asked, many
participants said they agreed with the majority as they did not
want to appear different or to look foolish.
Conformity is closely linked with culture (described in the next
section). It is highly relevant in the aircraft maintenance
environment where it can work for or against a safety culture,
depending on the attitudes of the existing staff and their
influence over newcomers. In other words, it is important for an
organization to engender a positive approach to safety
throughout their workforce, so that peer pressure and
conformity perpetuates this. In this instance, peer pressure is
clearly a good thing. Too often, however, it works in reverse,
with safety standards gradually deteriorating as shift members
develop practices which might appear to them to be more
efficient, but which erode safety. These place pressure, albeit
possibly unwittingly, upon new engineers joining the shift, to do
likewise.
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SECTION 6: MOTIVATION
Motivated behaviour is goal-directed, purposeful behaviour, and
no human behaviour occurs without some kind of motivation
underpinning it. In aircraft maintenance, engineers are trained to
carry out the tasks within their remit. However, it is largely their
motivation which determines what they actually do in any given
situation. Thus, motivation reflects the difference between what
a person can do and what he will do.
Motivation is usually considered to be a positive rather than a
negative force in that it stimulates one to achieve various things.
However just because someone is motivated, this does not
mean to say that he is doing the right thing. Many Motivations
can be thought of as a basic human drive that arouses, directs
and sustains all human behaviour. Generally we say a person is
motivated if he is taking action to achieve something. Criminals
are highly motivated for instance. Motivation is difficult to
measure and predict. We are all motivated by different things,
for example, an artist might strive over many months to
complete a painting that he may never sell, whereas a
businessman may forfeit all family life in pursuit of financial
success.
With respect to aviation safety, being appropriately motivated is
vital. Ideally, aircraft maintenance engineers ought to be
motivated to work in a safe and efficient manner. However,
many factors may cause conflicting motivations to override this
ideal. For instance, the motivation of some financial bonus, or
de-motivation of working outdoors in extreme cold weather
might lead to less consideration of safety and increase the
likelihood of risk taking, corner cutting, violating procedures and
so on. Aircraft maintenance engineers should be aware of
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conflicting motivations that impinge on their actions and attempt
to examine their motivations for working in a certain way.
6.1 MASLOWS HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
Possibly one of the most well known theories which attempts to
describe human motivation is Maslows hierarchy of needs.
Maslow considered that humans are driven by two different sets
of motivational forces:
Those that ensure survival by satisfying basic physical
and psychological needs
Those that help us to realize our full potential in life
known as self-actualization needs (fulfilling ambitions,
etc.)
Figure shows the hypothetical hierarchical nature of the needs
we are motivated to satisfy. The theory is that the needs lower
down the hierarchy are more primitive or basic and must be
satisfied before we can be motivated by the higher needs. For
instance, you will probably find it harder to concentrate on the
information in this document if you are very hungry (as the lower
level physiological need to eat predominates over the higher
level cognitive need to gain knowledge). There are always
exceptions to this, such as the mountain climber who risks his
life in the name of adventure. The higher up the hierarchy one
goes, the more difficult it becomes to achieve the need. High
level needs are often long-term goals that have to be
accomplished in a series of steps.
An aircraft maintenance engineer will fulfil lower level needs by
earning money to buy food, pay for a home and support a
family. They may well be motivated by middle level needs in
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their work context (e.g. social groups at work, gaining status
and recognition).

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It is noteworthy that for shift workers, tiredness may be a more

powerful motivator than a higher order need (such as personal
satisfaction to get the job done in time or accurately).

An interesting experiment on motivation was carried out in 1924

at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company in
Chicago. Here, the management altered various factors such as
rest periods, lighting levels, working hours, etc. and each time
they did so, performance improved, even when the apparent
improvements were taken away! This suggested that it was not
the improvements themselves which were causing the
increased production rates, but rather the fact that the staff felt
that management were taking notice of them and were
concerned for their welfare. This phenomenon is known as the
Hawthorne effect.

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Fig Maslows hierarchy of needs. Source: Maslow, 1954

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6.2 DE-MOTIVATION However, care should be taken when associating these

characteristics with lack of motivation, since some could also be
Highly motivated people tend to show the following signs of stress.
characteristics:
There is much debate as to the extent to which financial reward
high performance and results being consistently is a motivator. There is a school of thought which suggests that
achieved whilst lack of financial reward is a de-motivator, the reverse is
not necessarily true. The attraction of the extra pay offered to
the energy, enthusiasm and determination to succeed work a ghoster1 can be a strong motivator for an individual to
ignore the dangers associated with working when tired.
unstinting co-operation in overcoming problems
The motivating effects of job security and the de-motivating
willingness to accept responsibility impact of lack of job security is also an area that causes much
debate. The hire and fire attitude of some companies can,
willingness to accommodate change potentially, be a major influence upon safety, with real or
perceived pressure upon individuals affecting their performance
People who are de-motivated lack motivation, either intrinsically and actions. It is important that maintenance engineers are
or through a failure of their management to motivate the staff motivated by a desire to ensure safety (Maslows self
who works for them. De-motivated people tend to demonstrate esteem/self respect), rather than by a fear of being punished
the following characteristics: and losing their job (Maslows security). It is possible that the
apathy and indifference to the job, including reduced can do culture, which is evident in some areas of the industry,
regard for safety whilst working may be generated by the expectancy that if individuals do not
deliver, they will be punished (or even dismissed) and,
a poor record of time keeping and high absenteeism conversely, those who do deliver (whether strictly by the book
or not, finding ways around lack of time, spares or equipment)
an exaggeration of the effects/difficulties encountered in are rewarded and promoted. This is not motivation in the true
problems, disputes and grievances sense but it has its roots in a complex series of pressures and
drives and is one of the major influences upon human
a lack of co-operation in dealing with problems or performance and human error in maintenance engineering.
difficulties

unjustified resistance to change

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SECTION 7: CULTURE ISSUES
Disharmony in the workplace can arise through differences in
cultural background and can be the most difficult to rectify.
People tend to bring with them from childhood, deep-rooted
ideologies which will be hidden in day to day relationships.
When problems arise, losses of control lead to conflict which is
usually of the most disruptive kind, and the most difficult to deal
with.
People within a group, regarding each other as a member of the
group, see out of group members as different. The group will
categorise the differences with out of group members and will
perceive the differences as being greater than they really are.
This categorisation leads to stereotyping where strong positive
or negative attitudes towards the out group are being
developed.
Stereotyping has three main characteristics:
People are categorised on the basis of very visible
characteristics e.g.:
o RACE
o SEX
o NATIONALITY
o BODY APPEARANCE
o DRESS
o DISABILITY, ETC.
All members of a particular group are assumed to have
the same characteristics.
Anybody who is seen to belong to a particular group will
therefore automatically be assumed to have the same
characteristics as the group.
Prejudice can be positive or negative in our attitude to a group.
If we treat a group badly because of our negative attitude we
are said to be discriminating against them.
Prejudice and Discrimination are caused by:
Historical/Economic Causes
Cultural Causes
Situation (or Interpersonal) Causes
Individual Causes
Historical Causes
Much of the discrimination against blacks and Asians can be
traced back to Britains colonial days; blacks were imported into
this country, and used in the colonies as slaves and slaves by
definition do not have equal rights or fair treatment. The British
view of the inhabitants of its colonies was generally that they
were inferior to true Britons intellectually, socially and often in
motivation. When workers were required, however, the colonies
provided a readily available (and cheap) supply. Marxist
sociologists see prejudice as a way in which the ruling classes
maintain the attitude within society that a particular group or
groups are in some way inferior, and therefore the ruling
classes are justified in exploiting either the group or its
resources.

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Cultural Causes
Changes in the ways in which society operates may produce
breeding grounds for racial prejudice. For example, increased
urbanisation (people being attracted to or forced to live in
towns), mechanisation and unemployment (and competition for
jobs), the increased importance of training and qualifications,
the increasing power of the media (so that people believe what
they are told, rather than developing their own internal
standards), changes in the structure of the family and in
standards of morality, and the upward mobility (improvement in
social position) of some groups are all thought by sociologists
and anthropologists to have increased the level of prejudice.
Social processes, such as the law and education, may help to
maintain prejudice by making formal the unequal treatment of
particular groups. Because people and groups become crowded
together, they are in competition for work and they are more
easily affected by the media.
Situational and Interpersonal Causes
Situational causes of prejudice include conformity to group
norms i.e. people do not like being the odd one out in a group.
If the group have a prejudiced attitude, the non-prejudiced
member will conform and behave in prejudiced ways. In the
Southern States of the USA in the 1960s, restaurant owners
often used the Im not prejudiced, but my customers wouldnt
like it excuse as a reason for their refusal to admit blacks.
However as situations change so do many prejudices.
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Individual Causes
There are two main theories to explain why prejudice occurs in
individuals. The first is the frustration/aggression hypothesis.
The idea is that, if a person is prevented from reaching a goal or
has something they want taken away, they will experience an
increase in aggression. If the original source of frustration is not
attackable, the aggression is redirected on to a scapegoat.
The second theory of individual prejudice takes the view that
there are people, who, because of some flaw in their
personality, become prejudiced. There are many theories for
this prejudice, such as a strict, rigid and punishment centred
discipline in a childs upbringing, with parents they think of as
wholly good, but who are, in fact, deeply prejudiced.
Prejudice can lead to HARASSMENT in the workplace causing
stress to the individual. It can be in the form of touching and
bodily contact, the spoken word, the written word, drawings and
gestures. Where any of these become a nuisance, management
should help the individual to tackle the problem.
7.1 SUMMARY
The answer is to have well motivated groups of internationalist,
non-judgemental people, working in perfect conditions and
nothing ever going wrong. But of course this cannot be, we
have to make allowances for one another and accept that, as
aircraft engineers, our first priority is to the job in hand and to
the aircrafts safety.
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