The Psychological Impact

Those of us trained in scientific disciplines often find it baffling why people respond the way they do. For example, take the case of this airplane. A jammed door to the hold meant the luggage could be only loaded in the front of the plane, so to compensate for the weight the crew asked the passengers if they wouldn't mind sitting in the back of the plane to offset this weight. From an objective perspective this makes perfect sense as it would allow a plane with a minor problem to fly normally and without incident.

Unfortunately, the crew forgot to think about the psychological impact of suggesting that the places people sat on the airplane would make a difference in the safety of their flight. It seems that people don't like to be conveyed in a vehicle that depends on them or their actions. While we know it won't help in the current situation, we would like to suggest that the crew could have done something else, like perhaps:

• Only sold tickets for the rear of the plane. Of course, this implies that they knew about the hold door failure beforehand, which may not be accurate.
• Suggested that somewhere in the back of the plane there was a large sum of money. Of course, if they did this they would have to make it a whisper campaign so as not to arouse suspicion.
• Cordoned off the front of the plane with caution tape and put up a sign saying "Pardon our Dust". Then people would just assume it was being remodeled and not worry about it.
• Put notices on the front seats stating that they are under quarantine for "swine flu" or some other undesirable disease. People would definitely not sit there.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not aware of the psychological impact our choices have on people, and we hope others will follow our lead!