PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF ARMY HELICOPTER PILOTS

Summary.-The personality characteristics of 15 male Army helicopter pilots were ascertained by means of the MMPI and compared to those of 16 male nonpilot Army Officers. The pilots manifested more pathology than nonpilots for the significant data, as evidenced by significantly higher scores on the Hypochondriasis, Depression, Hysteria, Psychasthenia, and Social Introversion-Extroversion scales. Few psychological studies of personality characteristics have been conducted on pilots, not to mention helicopter pilots. Outstanding jet pilots were given the Maudsley Personality Inventory which measures Extroversion-Introversion and Neuroticism-Stability (1). Pilots were identical to American college men on Extroversion and significantly lower on Neuroticism. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was also administered (4). The pilots' profile was indicative of a group of energetic individuals who have accepting and favorable views of themselves. The data suggested these men were practical logicians tied to external events and took risks after examining the odds. They also lacked altruism and dependency, made friends easily but avoided intense friendships. The tendency towards interpersonal and emotional distance caused the pilots not to be touched too deeply by life. Goorney (1) administered the Maudsley scale to British pilots who scored significantly lower on Neuroticism than the British general population. On Extroversion, pilots scored higher than the general population but not significantly so. When the MMPI was administered to Air Force pilots to determine its effectiveness in discriminating adjustment (I), pilots appeared more defensive in testtaking attitude, more hysteric, and less socially introverted than norms compiled by Hathaway and McKinley (3). Moreover, the pilots scored significantly higher on the Subtle Defensiveness scale K, Hysteria, Psychopathic Deviate, and Mania scales, while scoring significantly lower on the Hypochondriasis, Psychasthenia, Schizophrenia, and Social Introversion-Exuoversion scales. The objective of the present study was to determine, given the unique job requirements, whether helicopter pilots would show significantly different personality characteristics from Army officers who had not attended flight school and were not pilots. The subjects were male Army officers on active duty and selected at random from Fort Wainwright, Alaska. The MMPI and a questionnaire about age, Army schools attended, and Army occupation were administered to each subject. Of 31 officers, 15 were helicopter pilots (mean age = 29 yr., range = 21 to 42) and 16 were nonpilots (mean age = 25 yr., range = 22 to 33). The mean standard scores of the MMPI scales, plus R-correction, were computed and analyzed by r tests. As evident from the mean values, pilots scored significantly higher on the Hypochondriasis, Depression, Hysteria, Psychasthenia, and Social IntroversionExtroversion scales than nonpilots (Table 1). These findings differ somewhat from previous resu1:s either comparing data with those of American college men (4) or with norms established by Hathaway and McKinley (3). Comparing Army officers who were not pilots with helicopter pilots to control for the effect of the military environment may account for the difference in results. More