Social psychology at work environment

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2. Social Psychology
By Suhail Ahmed
BSAMT02161001
Submitted to: F/E Naeem ghafor
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3. Social Psychology
• Branch of psychology
• Deals with social interactions
• Including People origins, Culture and Traditions
• Their effects on the individual.
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4. Social Environment
• AME work within a “system”.
• Factors within this system that impinge on the aircraft
maintenance engineer, ranging from his knowledge, skills and
abilities.
• Organizational Culture: Every organization employing AME
will have different “ways of doing things”.
• Organization have their own
philosophies,polices,procedures, training and selection
criteria.
• Organization may have a positive or negative impact on
AME performance.
• All these factors may contribute towards errors that the
engineer might make. 4

5. Responsibility
• 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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6. Responsibility
Individual
• AME works in highly efficient
environment.
• Being an AME is a responsible
job.
• AME plays a part in the safe and
efficient passage.
• They are liable to be called to
account as being in charge and
answerable.
• AWN No. 3 details the
certification responsibilities of
LAEs.
• responsible for any adjustment or
functional test.
• ANO Article 12 or JAR 145.50, it
provides the traceability.
Group
Advantage
• Every member feel responsible
for the output of that group.
• This may involve cross-checking
others’ work. ensuring that the
whole ‘product’ is safe.
• This may involve politely
challenging in others work that
something is not quite right,
etc.
Disadvantages
Diffusion of responsibility: with
responsibility being passed on to
such an extent that no-one feels
personally responsible for safety.
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7. Disadvantages
• 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.
• Intergroup conflict in which situations evolve where a
small group may act cohesively as a team, but rivalries
may arise between this team and others.
• Group polarisation is the tendency for groups to make
decisions that are more extreme than the individual
members’ initial positions. At times, group polarisation
results in more cautious decisions.
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8. . Motivation and De-motivation
• Motivation: Motivation can be thought of as a basic human drive
that arouses, directs and sustains all human behavior. Generally we
say a person is motivated if he is taking action to achieve something.
• Considered to be a positive rather than a negative force .
• However just because someone is motivated, this does not mean to
say that they are doing the right thing.
• Ideally, aircraft maintenance engineers ought to be motivated to
work in a safe and efficient manner.
• De-motivation of working outdoors in extreme cold weather might
lead to less consideration of safety.
• increase the likelihood of risk taking, corner cutting, violating
procedures and so on.
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9. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• Figure shows the needs we are
motivated to satisfy. the needs
lower down the hierarchy are more
primitive or basic and must be
satisfied before we can be
motivated by the higher needs.
• Maslow’s Two theories
• ensure survival by satisfying basic
physical and psychological needs;
• those that help us to realise our
full potential in life known as
self-actualisation needs (fulfilling
ambitions, etc.).
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10. Characteristics of Motivated people
• High performance and results being consistently achieved.
• The energy, enthusiasm and determination to succeed.
• Unstinting co-operation in overcoming problems.
• Willingness to accept responsibility.
• Willingness to accommodate change.
De-motivated people
• apathy and indifference to the job, including reduced regard for
safety whilst working;
• a poor record of time keeping and high absenteeism.
• an exaggeration of the effects/difficulties encountered in problems,
disputes and grievances.
• a lack of co-operation in dealing with problems or difficulties.
• unjustified resistance to change. 10

11. Peer Pressure
• 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.
• Peer pressure thus falls within the area of conformity.
• 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);
 Self-esteem (a person with low self-esteem is likely to conform
more).
• Familiarity of the individual with the subject matter.
• The expertise of the group members. 11

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13. Organisation Culture Issues
• The culture of an organisation can be described as ‘the way
we do things here’. It is a group or company norm.
• It is possible for cultural differences to exist between sites or
even between shifts within the same organisation.
• The prevailing culture of the industry as a whole also
influences individual organisations.
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14. Safety Culture
• ICAO HF Digest 10 describes a safety culture as “a set of beliefs, norms,
attitudes, roles and social and technical practices concerned with minimizing
exposure of employees, managers, customers and members of the general
public to conditions considered dangerous or hazardous”.
Key components of a safety culture
• The ‘engine’ that continues to propel the system towards the goal of
maximum safety successfully, regardless of the leadership’s personality or
current commercial concerns;
• Not forgetting to be afraid;
• Creating a safety information system that collects, analyses and disseminates
information from incidents.
• A good reporting culture, where staff are willing to report near-misses.
• A just culture - an atmosphere of trust, where people are encouraged, even
rewarded, for providing essential safety related information
• A flexible culture;
• Respect for the skills, experience and abilities of the workforce and first line
supervisors;
• Training investment;
• A learning culture - the willingness and the competence to draw the right
conclusions from its safety information system
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15. Team Working
• Teams may comprise a number of individuals working together towards one
shared goal.
• Alternatively, they may consist of a number of individuals working in parallel to
achieve one common goal.
• Teams generally have a recognized leader and one or more follower.
Communication
• A team leader must ensure that a team member has not just heard an instruction, but
understood what is meant by it.
• A team member must highlight (input) problems.
Co-operation
• ‘Pulling together’ is inherent in the smooth running of a team. Fairness and openness
within the team encourage cohesiveness and mutual respect.
• Disagreements must be handled sensitively by the team leader.
Co-ordination
• Co-ordination is required within the team to ensure that the team leader knows what
his group members are doing.
• This includes delegation of tasks so that all the resources within the team are
utilised.*
Mutual Support ⁰
• Mutual support is at the heart of the team’s identity.
• The team leader must emphasize (give special importance to) this in his team.
• For instance, if mistakes are made, these should be discussed and corrected
constructively
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17. Management,Supervisionand Leadership
• Managers and supervisors have a key role to play in ensuring that
work is carried out safely.
• It is no good instilling the engineers and technicians with ‘good safety
practice concepts, if these are not supported by their supervisors and
managers.
• Supervisor’s role: It is mainly his job to prevent unsafe norms from
developing, and to ensure that good safety practices are maintained.
• It can be difficult for supervisory and management staff to carrying
out their supervisory duties and maintaining their engineering skills
and knowledge and they may get out of practice.
• Leader: A leader in a given situation is a person whose ideas
and actions influence the thought and the behavior of others.
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18. Characteristics of a Leader
• Motivating his team;
• Reinforcing good attitudes and behavior
• Demonstrating by example
• Maintaining the group
• Fulfilling a management role.
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