Machiavellianism and Personality Typing as Determinants for Screening Commercial Pilot Candidates

Abstract

The association between personality and effective team leadership in the cockpit environment has been a major focus of research in aviation management. The major air carriers incorporate in their assessment process personality style and decision-making skills by placing pilot candidates through a two or three stage interview process. In an ongoing effort to develop a comprehensive pilot candidate selection model, university researchers have studied the relationship between personality type and skill in small group manipulation. In this study, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as a construct of personality type and the Mach V scale as a construct of skill in small group manipulation were employed in the survey of 52 commercial flight officers. Eight-five percent of the surveyed pilots fell into one of the sixteen personality types measured by the MBTI scale, which correlated significantly with Machiavellian orientation as measured by the Mach V scale. Research indicates a significant relationship in success in leadership of small groups and the Mach V scores. The results of this study suggest the potential of select dimensions of the MBTI and the Mach V instruments in the screening of commercial pilot candidates for hire.

Personality types of pilot students: A study of an Australian collegiate aviation program

“…Through the use of the MBTI, three strong categories were confirmed twenty-one percent of the sample showed the profile of extraversion, sensing, thinking and judging (ESTJ) type. This conforms to Hamilton's (2007) study of civil commercial pilots which also displayed the same dominance in the ESTJ category type. The second highest at 10.3% was categorised as introverted, sensing, thinking and judging (ISTJ), while the third largest group also at 10.3% held extroversion, sensing, thinking and perceiving (ESTP).…”

“…The pilot profile also describes the individual as active with high levels of assertiveness. Through the use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Hamilton (2007) provided dimensional profiles of 52 commercial flight officers. It was concluded that there was a significant personality type with successful informal group leaders holding dimensions of either extroversion, intuition, thinking and judging (ENTJ) or extroversion, sensing, thinking and judging (ESTJ) within the MBTI category.…”

“…It must be noted that different personality instruments are administered where definitions of personality scales are less conforming to other inventories, although some have evidently surfaced. Notably, pilots are seen to be more emotionally stable (Picano, 1991;Fitzgibbons et al, 2004), highly conscientious (Fitzgibbons et al, 2004;Carretta et al, 2014), highly assertive (Hormann & Maschke, 1996;Callister, 1999;Fitzgibbons et al, 2004), achievement striving (Hormann & Maschke, 1996;Callister, 1999;Lambirth et al, 2009), highly competitive (Picano, 1991;Callister, 1999); tough-minded (Bartram,1995;Callister, 1999) and show elevated levels of extraversion (Ramachandran et al, 1983;Bartram, 1995;Callister, 1999;Dillinger et al, 2003;Hamilton, 2007;Carretta et al, 2014). Within the realms of the MBTI, personality categories of extraversion, sensing, thinking and judging (ESTJ) types have been observed (Roen, 1991;Hamilton, 2007).…”

“…Other survey inventories measuring various pilot performance data have resulted in consistent traits and have concluded that personality interacts with job performance (Lambirth et al, 2009). Performance tasks included check flights (Hormann & Maschke, 1996), emergency command ability (Flin & Slaven, 1996), stress coping strategies (Dillinger et al, 2003), cognitive ability (Carretta et al, 2014), Machiavellianism (Hamilton, 2007) and crew coordination (Chidester et al, 1991). The motivation of these studies was that a specific personality attributing to the success in future flight training could be identified.…”