Task A : Human Behavior and Effective Communication

Objective : the student will be introduced to the basic information regarding human behavior and effective communication

Completion Standard : The student will be able to describe the element of human behavior.

Definitions of Human Behavior

1. Is an attempt to explain how and why humans function the way they do.

   1. innate human behavior and individual experience and environment

2. A product of factors that cause people to act in predictable ways.

   1. How people handle fear is a product of their individual experiences

3. The result of attempts to satisfy certain needs

   1. The need for food and water, 

   2. Or more complex needs such as the need for respect and acceptance

Instructor and student relationship

• The instructor must understand their own style of teaching

  • Adapt that style to the needs of the student

• Scenarios

• Change things up

  • Add variation

Human Needs And Motivation

1. Motivation

   1. Is the reason one acts or behaves in a certain way and lies at the heart of goals

   2. Prompts learners to engage in hard work and affects learner success

   3. Can be negative or positive

      1. Negative – Fear

      2. Positive – promise or achievement of rewards

2. Maintaining Motivation

   1. Rewarding Success – Positive Feedback

      1. Praising incremental successes during training

      2. Relating daily accomplishments to lesson objectives.

      3. Commenting favorably on learner progress and level ability.

   2. Presenting new challenges

      1. When a learner begins to perform a skill consistently to ACS or PTS requirements.

      2. Up the Anti

         1. Add challenges

         2. New scenarios

         3. Add pressure

   3. Drops in motivation

      1. motivation levels drop

      2. Students may show up unprepared or aviation is not a priority

      3. Remind students of their goals!!!

   4. Instructor Actions

      1. Ask new learners about their aviation training goals.

      2. Reward incremental successes in learning.

      3. Present new challenges.

      4. Occasionally remind learners about their own stated goals for aviation training.

      5. Assure learners that learning plateaus are normal and that improvement will resume with continued effort.

3. Human Needs

   1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs 

      1. Physiological Needs

         1. The need for air, food, water; unless these biological needs are met, a person cannot concentrate fully on learning.

      2. Safety and security

         1. If a student does not feel safe, they cannot concentrate on learning

      3. Love and belongingness

         1. Students are usually out of their normal surroundings during training, and their need for association and belonging is more pronounced

         2. Shyness

      4. Self-Esteem

         1. Humans have a need for a stable, firmly based, high level of self-respect and respect from others. 

         2. High self-esteem results in self-confidence, independence, achievement, competence, and knowledge.

      5. Cognitive

         1. Humans have a deep need to understand what is going on around them. When a person understands what is going on, he or she can either control the situation or make an informed choice about what steps might be taken next.

      6. Aesthetic 

         1. Needs connect directly with human emotions .When someone likes another person or an object, the reasons are not examined — he or she simply likes it. This need can factor into the student-instructor relationship

      7. Self-actualization 

         1. A person’s need to be and do that which the person was “born to do.” Helping a student achieve his or her individual potential in aviation offers the greatest challenge as well as reward to the instructor.

Defense Mechanisms

1. Repression

   1. whereby a person places uncomfortable thoughts into inaccessible areas of the unconscious mind.

   2. Now is pushed away till another time

2. Denial

   1. Refusal to accept external reality because it is too threatening

   2. Refusal to accept what happened

   3. May take things in a diluted form/ simplified

3. Compensation

   1. Counterbalancing perceived weaknesses by emphasizing strength in other areas

   2. if student is weak in one area they’ll bring up a strong area instead…

4. Projection

   1. An individual places his or her own unacceptable impulses onto someone else

   2. Blames someone else for their mistakes

5. Rationalization

   1. A subconscious technique for justifying actions that otherwise would be unacceptable

   2. Believe in the plausible and acceptable excuses which seem real and justifiable.

6. Reaction Formation

   1. A person fakes a belief opposite to the true belief because the true belief causes anxiety

   2. May develop a who-cares-how-other-people-feel attitude to cover up feelings of loneliness and a hunger for acceptance

7. Fantasy

   1. A learner engages in daydreams about how things should be rather than doing anything about how things are.

   2. When carried to extremes, the worlds of fantasy and reality can become so confused that the dreamer cannot distinguish one from the other

8. Displacement

   1. Results in an unconscious shift of emotion, affect, or desire from the original object to a more acceptable, less threatening substitute

   2. Avoids the risk associated with feeling unpleasant emotions and puts them somewhere other than where they belong

Emotional reactions

1. Anxiety

   1. A feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, often about something that is going to happen, typically something with an uncertain outcome.

   2. Overcome fears

2. Impatience

   1. learner fails to understand the need for preliminary training and seeks only the ultimate objective without considering the means necessary to reach it.

   2. presenting the necessary preliminary training one step at a time, with clearly stated goals for each step

3. Worry or lack of interest

   1. Learners who are worried or emotionally upset are not ready to learn and derive little benefit from instruction

   2. Hierarchy of needs

   3. Distractions 

4. Physical discomfort, illness, fatigue, and dehydration

   1. Discomforts

      1. As the extremes of temperature, poor ventilation, inadequate lighting, or noise and confusion, cannot learn at a normal rate

   2. Illness

      1. such as a cold, or a major illness or injury interferes with the normal rate of learning

      2. Airsickness

   3. Fatigue

      1. Acute

         1. Inattention

         2. Distractibility

         3. Errors in timing

         4. Neglect of secondary tasks

         5. Loss of accuracy and control

         6. Lack of awareness of error accumulation

         7. Irritability

      2. Chronic

         1. Combination of the above 

   4. dehydration

1. Apathy due to inadequate instruction

   1. They recognize that the instructor has made inadequate preparations for the instruction being given, or when the instruction appears to be deficient, contradictory, or insincere

   2. Ask for feedback

2. Reactions to stress

   1. Normal

      1. The fight or flight syndrome 

      2. Respond rapidly and exactly, within the limits of their experience and training

   2. Abnormal 

      1. response to anxiety or stress may be completely absent or at least inadequate

      2. responses may be random or illogical, or they may do more than is called for by the situation

      3. Inappropriate reactions, such as extreme over-cooperation, painstaking self-control, inappropriate laughter or singing, and very rapid changes in emotions.

      4. Marked changes in mood on different lessons, such as excellent morale followed by deep depression.

      5. Severe anger directed toward the flight instructor, service personnel, and others

1. Reactions to abnormal learners

2. A flight instructor who believes a learner may be suffering from a serious psychological abnormality has a responsibility to refrain from instructing that learner

3. Personal responsibility of assuring that such a person does not continue flight training or become certificated as a pilot

4. If an instructor believes that a learner may have a disqualifying psychological defect, arrangements should be made for another instructor, who is not acquainted with the learner, to conduct an evaluation flight. 

   1. After the flight, the two instructors should confer to determine whether they agree that further investigation or action is justified. 

5. The flight instructor’s primary legal responsibility concerns the decision whether to endorse the learner to be competent for solo flight operations, or to make a recommendation for the practical test leading to certification as a pilot.

   1. If, after consultation with an unbiased instructor, the instructor believes that the learner may have a serious psychological deficiency, such endorsements and recommendations should be withheld.

Basic Elements to communication 

1. Source (sender, speaker, writer, encoder, transmitter, or instructor)

   1. Ability to select and use language is essential for transmitting

   2. Consciously or unconsciously reveal information about themselves

   3. Speak or write from accurate, up-to-date, and stimulating material.

2. Symbols (words or signs)

   1. Which are simple oral, visual, or tactile codes

   2. Facial expressions

   3. Senses Send / Receive 

1. Receiver (listener, reader, decoder, or learner)

   1. individual or individuals to whom the message is directed

   2. Reaction

Barriers to effective Communication

• C – Confusion

  • Between the symbol and the symbolized object results when a word is confused with what it is meant to represent

• O – Overuse of abstractions

  • s are words that are general rather than specific

  • Concrete words

• I – Interference

  • When the message gets disrupted, truncated, or added to somewhere in the communication sequence.

• L – Lack of common experience

  • Between the communicator (instructor) and the receiver (learner) is probably the greatest single barrier to effective communication

  • Similar experiences 

• E – External Factors

  • effective communication can not be controlled by the instructor

Developing communication skills 

1. Role-playing

   1. Student becomes instructor

2. Instructional communication

   1. Instructors must always determine whether the student has actually received and retained the knowledge. 

   2. Communication has not occurred unless the desired results of the communication have taken place.

   3. Also, instructors should not be afraid to use examples of past experiences to illustrate particular points

3. Listening

   1. Do not interrupt.

   2. Do not judge.

   3. Think before answering.

   4. Be close enough to hear.

   5. Watch non-verbal behavior.

   6. Beware of biases.

   7. Look for underlying feelings.

   8. Concentrate.

   9. Avoid rehearsing answers while listening.

   10. Do not insist on the last word.

4. Questioning

   1. An instructor should ask focused, open-ended questions and avoid closed-ended questions

5. Instructional enhancement

   1. Never stop learning