Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/733
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Item Emotional intelligence, safety behavior, and peer-assessed pilot performance(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2021) Dugger, Zachary Taylor; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Bernadette J. McCrory; This is a manuscript style paper that includes co-authored chapters.Flying is a stressful and demanding profession that requires both technical and nontechnical skills. Traditionally, technical skills such as aircraft knowledge and flight control-handling took precedence over nontechnical skills such as interpersonal skills, stress management, and leadership. However, over the past four decades increased emphasis has been placed on pilots' abilities to work together as a cohesive team. The purpose of this thesis was to explore the relationship between trait emotional intelligence, safety attitude, and safety citizenship to identify which constructs play the most prominent role in affecting peer-assessed pilot crew resource management. Using a web-based survey composed of validated instruments, information was gathered from pilots (n=44) from both military and civilian backgrounds. Results indicated a significant association between safety citizenship and trait emotional intelligence and between safety citizenship and peer assessed crew resource management performance. Only a marginal association was identified between trait emotional intelligence and safety attitude. Additionally, comparison of the trait emotional intelligence profiles of the pilots with the general population indicated that pilots have muted emotion-related tendencies with lower scores than their non-pilot peers. Finally, research was conducted to evaluate principal component analysis, a statistical method, as a pilot selection tool using pilot trait emotional intelligence and safety tendencies as selection criteria. Results demonstrated strong potential for the implementation of principal component analysis as a less-subjective method to select pilots during the hiring or crew-matching process. Pilots, therefore, seem to differ from the general population with unique trait emotional intelligence profiles. When assessing peer performance, pilots tend to most value peers with high safety citizenship tendencies, which also closely associates with high trait emotional intelligence.Item Emotional intelligence and dangerous driving behaviors(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2022) Ahmed, Jubaer; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Nicholas Ward; Nicholas Ward, Jay Otto and Annmarie McMahill were co-authors of the article, 'How does emotional intelligence predict driving behaviors among non-commercial drivers?' in the journal 'Journal of transportation research part F: psychology and behaviour' which is contained within this dissertation.; Nicholas Ward, Jay Otto and Annmarie McMahill were co-authors of the article, 'The influence of emotional intelligence on dangerous driving: a comparison between commercial and non-commercial drivers' submitted to the journal 'Journal of safety science' which is contained within this dissertation.; Nicholas Ward, Jay Otto and Annmarie McMahill were co-authors of the article, 'Developing a scale to assess emotional intelligence in the context of driving' submitted to the journal 'Journal of personality assessment' which is contained within this dissertation.Dangerous driving behaviors are the leading cause of road crashes and fatalities. Many factors contribute to dangerous driving behaviors including drivers' beliefs, attitudes, personalities, and emotions. Of these, the role of emotions has received less attention. Emotional Intelligence theory provides a framework for understanding how individuals' emotional factors influence their behaviors and interactions with others. Therefore, this research aims to understand how emotional intelligence can be used to investigate and alleviate dangerous driving behaviors. The research aims of this dissertation include 1. Identify the most appropriate measure of emotional intelligence that is currently available for the driving context; 2. Examine the correlations between emotional intelligence and dangerous driving behaviors in different risk exposure groups (commercial and non-commercial drivers); 3. Develop an emotional intelligence measure specific to the context of driving. This research dissertation comprised four survey studies conducted between November 2019 to July 2021 among commercial and non-commercial drivers across the United States. The results further revealed higher emotional intelligence scores related to less dangerous driving behaviors for both commercial and non-commercial drivers. However, the relationship between emotional intelligence and dangerous driving was significantly stronger among commercial drivers than their non-commercial counterparts. In the final study, this research developed a new Drivers' Emotional Intelligence Scale (DEIS) specific to driving. Factor analysis revealed a three-factor structure for DEIS labeled as emotionality, self-control, and anxiety. The results showed that the DEIS subscales were stronger predictors of dangerous driving behaviors compared to the previously used emotional intelligence scales. This research concludes that improving emotional intelligence will be useful to reduce dangerous driving behaviors and suggests incorporating emotional intelligence to design interventions to reduce fatal road crashes. This research acknowledges some limitations such as the use of self-reported surveys and convenience quota samples, which may have limited the generalizability of these results. Future research should continue to gather evidence about the association between emotional intelligence and traffic safety through different experimental designs and longitudinal studies.