PART 66 CATEGORY B1.

1
MODULE 9A
HUMAN FACTORS

(B is the same length as X)

Page 3-44 Module 9A Issue 0 Rev 1 08/03/2013

 PART 66 CATEGORY B1.1
MODULE 9A
HUMAN FACTORS

3.14.4 Peer Pressure

In the working environment of aircraft maintenance, there are many pressures

brought to bear on the individual engineer. We have already discussed the influence
of the organisation, of responsibility and motivational drives. In addition to these,
there is the possibility that the aircraft maintenance engineer will receive pressure at
work from those that work with him. This is known as 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.

For example, an individual engineer may feel that there is pressure to cut corners in
order to get an aircraft out by a certain time, in the belief that this is what his
colleagues would do under similar circumstances. There may be no actual pressure
from management to cut corners, but subtle pressure from peers, e.g. taking the form
of comments such as “You don’t want to bother checking the manual for that. You do
it like this…” would constitute peer pressur e. Peer pressure thus falls within the area
of conformity. Conformity is the tendency to allow one’s opinions, attitudes,
actions and even perceptions to be affected by prevailing opinions, attitudes,
actions and perceptions.

3.14.5 Experiments in Conformity

Several experiments investigating the nature of conformity, in which people were

asked to judge which of lines A, B & C was the same length as line X. Questions
were asked under a set of different conditions:

· where the individuals were asked to make judgements on their own;

· where individuals carried out the task after a group of 7-9 ‘primed individuals’
(stooges) had all judged that line A was the correct choice. Of course, the real
participant did not know the others were “stooges”

In the first condition, very few mistakes were made (as would be expected of such a
simple task with an obvious answer). In the latter condition, on average, participants
gave wrong answers on one third of the trials by agreeing with the ‘stooge’ majority.
Clearly, participants yielded to group pressure and agreed with the incorrect ‘group’
finding (however, it is worth mentioning that there were considerable individual
differences: some participants never conformed, and some conformed all the time).

Module 9A Issue 0 Rev 1 08/03/2013 Page 3-45