Definition
The skill of identifying, in oneself, the presence of any of the five hazardous thought patterns (anti-authority, impulsivity, invulnerability, macho, and resignation) that lead pilots toward unsafe decisions, so that each can be countered with its specific antidote before it influences action.
Plain English
Catching yourself thinking in a way that pushes you toward a risky choice, naming which kind of unsafe thinking it is, and replacing it with a safer thought before you act on it.
Context Anchor
Used in flight training, preflight decision-making, scenario discussions, and postflight debriefs when evaluating why a pilot made or nearly made an unsafe choice.
Derivation
Recognizing comes from older words meaning to know again or identify. Hazardous means involving danger or risk. Attitude originally referred to a posture or position, and in this context it means a mental posture: the way a pilot is thinking about a situation.
Why Pilots Care
These attitudes can cause pilots to bypass safety procedures or make poor choices that lead to incidents or accidents; learning to recognize them allows a pilot to pause and apply corrective thinking.
Intuition Check
Do not confuse attitude here with the aircraft’s nose-up, nose-down, or bank position. In this phrase, attitude means the pilot’s mental outlook or decision-making tendency.
Example Sentence 1
During the preflight self-assessment, she practiced recognizing hazardous attitudes and noticed an 'I can make it' thought, which she identified as invulnerability and replaced with the antidote.
Example Sentence 2
Before a cross-country flight the instructor asked the student to demonstrate recognizing hazardous attitudes in a realistic decision-making exercise.