Unseasoned Male Travelers More Likely to Be Imprudent Flyers
Jackie Reddy October 18, 2016
Green and mean: profiling demographic data and travel experience, Dr. Ryan Meldrum’s study is the first to correlate a lack of personal self-control with poor in-flight behavior.
For many travelers, hell is other people, especially at cruising altitude. But this point, which most passengers have long suspected, has just been backed up by research from Dr. Ryan C. Meldrum, a criminologist from Florida International University.
Dr. Meldrum’s work, published in The Social Science Journal, examines whether or not poor behavior among passengers can be explained by their personality or the fact that the traveler belongs to a certain demographic.
In his study, Dr. Meldrum sampled 750 American adults, asking them how likely they would be to act out certain unpleasant behaviors on a plane. These acts included breaking wind, not waiting to recline their seats until the craft reached cruising altitude, not washing hands after going to the lavatory and using foul language towards other passengers for bumping their seat.
Additionally, Dr. Meldrum recorded demographic data for participants as well as information on how many times they had flown in the past. Finally, passengers were asked to assess themselves in terms of qualities like self-restraint and self-centeredness.
Explaining the results, Dr. Meldrum said in a statement that “Three things stood out as clear correlates of imprudent airline passenger behavior: being male, having flown fewer times on an airplane relative to other people, and scoring higher on items measuring self-centeredness,” he added.
This study is the first to extrapolate a lack of self-control with poor airline passenger behavior, but it also agrees with research that male passengers are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior than their female peers.
However, the fact that veteran passengers are better-behaved stood out in Meldrum’s study, a point that “suggests…that being a pleasant airline passenger depends…on how many times you have flown,” he said.
While the academic believes that education could be key in preventing unpleasant experiences involving green travelers, he admitted, that this study does not take into account the impact of substances like alcohol.
“There certainly is more research to be done on this topic but this study offers initial evidence that there are measurable factors that predispose certain people to be less than pleasant when flying,” confirmed Dr. Meldrum.
[Photo: Jerome Jarre/YouTube]
You can tell a 1st time and 1X year traveler to a seasoned traveler. 1. They do not ask questions cause they know the answers 2. They know how to check in at a kiosk 3. They know how not to cut a line to check luggage 4. They know how to be polite to airport staff and TSA 5. They know to take off their shoes, put ALL metal in the bins, laptop in its own bin and move! 6. They know to take their things and leave security and not clog up the area 7. They know not to take up a seat with their carry on bag 8. They know that dunkin Donut and Starbuck coffees do not work on take off and landings so DO NOT BRING THEM ON. 9. They know there is no food on many planes so eat at home, at the airport but do not bitch that in 1970s when you paid $250 for the same flight that you paid $200 you got a meal. Get over it! 10. They know that your feet stay in your shoes and not on the seat in front of you or next to you. 11. They know that since they sit on an aisle seat you have to get up to let someone out -- if you do not want to take a window seat. 12. They know that perfume should be applied AFTER you get off the plane not while on the plane 13. They know that doing your fingernails on the plane is WRONG 14. They know that the person sitting next to them is only 6 inches away not 60 feet so keep your voice down we do not need to know you are menstruating. 15. They know that the floor on the plane is not a garbage can, so pick it up.- this is why First is always cleaner then the last 3 rows! 16. They know that you do not have to make a line for the bathroom. You can wait in your seat until the light goes to RED 17. They know that a flight attendant can open that bathroom door to check on why two of you are in there too.... and we know how to do that too! 18. They know if your a batch to the Flight Attendant they will make sure you have the worst luck in the world. --- ran out of peanuts---never happens 19. They know which bags to bring on board and which ones NOT. Because it will get checked. 20. They know up to get on board first and not last ! 21. They know how to smile, be kind and nice to everyone around them. Because you are going to be with them for 3-10 hrs 16.
@strickerj, @AAJetMan: Don't mix the research article and the news snippet. (I would even suspect that Jackie Reddy did not read the original research article. Even the author of the news snippet prepared by PR people from Florida International University for PRNewswire may not have read the original research article, probably only the summary.) It is like judging on the quality of Bob Dylan's ballads by the quality of the writing in the review in Huffington Post. The original research article contains all the numeric information about the study. - I just read that article. (I have some other concerns about the methodology, but they have nothing to do with the issues you raised.)
If that happy, shirtless, smiling kid is an example of "unpleasant" experiences, bring it on!!
rubbish research...well stated strickerj. But I would not be surprised that more veteran flyers can tolerate the little things that go wrong, whereas a newbie may get upset.
I'm generally wary of studies that rely on "self-assessments" - how many people are going to be honest about being "self-centered"? And how do you gauge degrees of self-centeredness? Plus, the linked article leaves out how much of a difference each correlate makes (I.e., is there a 5% difference between men and women, or 25%?), and how each behavior is weighted (I.e., farting in close quarters seems less egregious to me than assaulting your neighbor over the armrest position). It's curious that he found flying frequently made one less likely to engage in antisocial behavior - we've got thousands of DYKWIA stories on here that suggest otherwise. :)