Definition
A group decision-making phenomenon in which a decision reached collectively tends to be riskier than the average decision the same individuals would have made alone. In aviation human factors, it is studied as a crew resource management hazard, where shared responsibility within a flight crew can lead the group to accept a level of risk that no single member would have chosen independently.
Plain English
When a crew makes a decision together, they sometimes choose a riskier option than any one of them would have chosen on their own. Sharing the responsibility seems to make people braver about risk than they should be.
Context Anchor
Seen in aviation decision-making and crew training, especially when pilots discuss weather, fuel, delays, or whether to continue a flight.
Derivation
From the everyday word 'risky' (exposed to danger) and 'shift' (a movement or change). The term was coined by social psychologists in the 1960s to describe the observed change — a shift — toward greater risk when decisions move from individual to group.
Why Pilots Care
Unrecognized risky shift in a cockpit crew can produce acceptance of higher-risk weather, fuel, or terrain decisions than any one pilot would have chosen alone.
Intuition Check
Risky shift does not mean any change that involves risk. It means the final group decision becomes more risk-accepting than the members’ individual judgments were at first.
Example Sentence 1
During CRM training, the instructor warned the crew about risky shift, where a captain, first officer, and dispatcher together might press on into deteriorating weather that any one of them would have diverted around alone.
Example Sentence 2
After the risky shift appeared in the discussion about continuing into icing conditions, the first officer called for a more conservative alternate plan.