The Five Hazardous Attitudes, A Subset of Complacency

Abstract

The definition of complacency embodies the characteristics of being self-satisfied with the circumstances even when a person is unaware of potential dangers (Mirriam-Webster, 2022). The uninformed self-satisfaction characteristic of complacency frequently manifests itself through a compliance drift or a normalization of deviance. Checklists might be performed from memory without the requisite read and verify protocol. A repetitive deviance that has become institutionalized might make the difference between a professional performance and a hazardous performance. Complacency might be perceived as the overarching human factors hazardous attitude with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) identified five hazardous attitudes of anti-authority, impulsivity, invulnerability, macho, and resignation a subset of complacency.