My name is Piers Herbert and I am also new to this forum. I am a BAe
146 captain with Air U.K.
I don't know your background interests in psychology so please forgive
me if I am stating the obvious. What struck me about your project was
how it fits with the idea that peoples' decision making and behaviour
depends on the meanings they construct about the world and these in
turn depend on the "discourses" of social life. The media and other
texts are powerful components of such discourses in that they often
have the power to "form the objects of which they speak". Thus "pilot
error" gets socially constructed as a real thing or cause. The danger
of such reification is that it may divert attention from attempts to
analyse the deeper causes of pilot error or from more systemic
approaches looking for opportunities to reduce, capture or mitigate the
consequences of error. Of cause trying to analyse discourses is very
subjective and thus liable to be criticised for being un-scientific.
Daniel Maurino has described aviation safety as a "social construct". I
think his ideas would be a useful theoretical background to your
project. See Maurino, D. "Human Factors, Safety and Risk in Aviation"
(paper presented to the Royal Aeronautical Society, 28 May 1996)
Regards
Piers