Individual Differences and Interpersonal Relationships — Page 234, Lesson 368

I want to walk you through the topic of individual differences and interpersonal relationships, which is central to understanding how we as pilots work together in the cockpit. Let's start with what shapes personality. Many outside sources influence personality. Success is one of those sources. For example, an under-confident co-pilot gets promoted to Captain, and as they realise their own capabilities, they become assured when dealing both with their work and with others around them. Other factors that influence personality are social origins, education, and past experience. Now, let's define personality precisely. Personality is the term used to embrace all those stable behavioural characteristics that are associated with an individual. It's extremely important when determining relationships with others. Personality refers to the total organisation of the individual's motives, attitudes, beliefs, ways of perceiving, and ways of behaving. We're all used to common descriptive words and phrases like 'a daredevil', 'a good sport', 'a sour faced skinflint', or 'a good listener'. But these terms are unscientific and too general for use in assessing personality with any degree of accuracy. So we need a more structured approach. Let's distinguish personality from attitude and behaviour. Attitude is a way of believing and feeling about an object or class of objects. Attitudes are learnt, and they may be general or specific. They represent predispositions to respond, favourably or unfavourably, towards the "target" of the attitude. Unlike personality, there seems to be no real evidence that attitudes are genetic. Behaviour is the outward result of both personality and attitude. However, behaviour is not always the natural outcome, because behaviour may be controlled if the individual is so motivated. We are all able to adapt our behaviour to the circumstances, or indeed to the person with whom we are associating at the time. This ability is particularly important in a pilot who has to fly with many differing and diverse personalities. Now, how do we assess personality? We all make assessments of personality in any social encounter. We even make quick decisions on a stranger's personality by their appearance or dress. To illustrate this, let's look at Figure 12.1, which classifies individuals into three groups: endomorphic, mesomorphic, or ectomorphic. The endomorph is soft and round in physical appearance, and we tend to think of them as easy going, sociable, and self-indulgent. The mesomorph appears physically hard, muscular, and rectangular, and is considered to be psychologically restless, energetic, and insensitive. Finally, the ectomorph is physically tall, thin, and fragile, and is looked upon as introspective, sensitive, and nervous. These are quick, appearance-based assessments — not scientifically rigorous, but they show how we naturally form impressions. In the cockpit, we need to move beyond these surface judgments to truly understand the personalities we work with.