Re: 1+1 - 1

Paul Baxter (pbaxter_at_personalbest.com.au)
Mon, 07 Dec 1998 10:47:28 +1000

This reminds me of some early research in the field of social psychology
where it was shown that in a small group there is a lot of social pressure
to conform. The person who speaks up and disagrees with what appears to be
the majority viewpoint or group concensus can receives a lot of preer
pressure to change their opinion. However, if the dissident within the
group has just one other person who agrees with his or her position, then
the dissident is much less likely to change his or her differing opinion.
This is the mechanism of social support at work.

Perhaps the situation you describe in the cockpit is somehow similar to the
small group research situation where subtle social pressures exist not to
appear to be differing from what is the perceived group concensus (i.e.,
"everything's OK").

I have found myself in situations where I perceived what appeared to me to
be a dangerous state of affairs, yet I said nothing because others in the
group had said nothing. Their implied agreement with the status of the
situation indicated to me that if I was to raise the alert then I might be
going against the group concensus (i.e, "everything's OK"). This, in turn,
would possibly expose me to group pressure to conform - a psychologically
unpleasant experience. So, it's a safer bet to keep one's mouth shut. All
this goes on in your head while not a word is spoken.

On reflection, this compliance is silly at best and dangerous at worst,
especially as the reason the other group members said nothing was very
likely similar to my own reason - they said nothing because no one else
said anything, and so nobody presses the panic button and the situation can
rapidly deteriorate. These social pressures based on *perceived* agreement
by group members with a given state of affairs should not be underestimated
and need to be discussed during training as they can be extremely powerful.

Paul

-- 


At 08:26 AM 12/5/98 -0800, you wrote:
>
>Isn't this just a synergistic example of "Co-pilot Syndrome" in which 
>one or more of the crew adopt a mindset that says "They know what they 
>are doing; everything is OK"?  I don't think it's much of a stretch to 
>believe that if this syndrome can affect one individual in a crew, it 
>can affect ALL members in a crew.
>
>>I am familiar with a recent incident. In the debrief, both crew members
>>basically said, "I was not comfortable with the preceeding events but I 
>went along because the other guy said nothing." When asked what they would 
>have done based solely on their perceptions, each said, "I would have 
>abandoned the approach."  In this case, the normal synergy of 1+1 did not
equal 3 but, in fact, 
>it was 1+1 <1.  Where is the research and information on this and where
are your 
>thoughts?   Wiley
Paul Baxter   PhD, MA, BA(Hons), BA, Dip Teach, MAPS
Personal Best Systems (R). Less pain, more gain.
Brisbane, Australia.
Ph +61 (0)500 579 257. Fax +61 (0)7 3376 1576
Internet: http://www.personalbest.com.au/~pbaxter/habits.htm
Email: pbaxter_at_personalbest.com.au