Seatbelt

Thoughts on Seatbelt Fastening
fhb, 30-dec-1993

Seems silly to provide detailed step-by-step instructions on
how to fasten your seat belt. Wonder if there's a secret
psychological reason behind the overt silly one. I imagine
airline psychologists preparing the flight attendant speeches,
starting out with the "how to fasten your seat belt" spiel not
because people don't know how to put on their seat belts, but
to provide a familiar speech pattern, which can be ignored,
for passengers to get comfortable with their seat, the cabin
environment, and entertain the feeling that they're in the
hands of a competent professional bureaucracy.

Providing the appearance of a competent professional
bureaucracy puts customers at ease, and may even let the
airline justify larger fares. A familiar ritual is what
people want. So I expect the seatbelt speech will live on for
a good long time. If automatic seatbelts are developed, which
fasten themselves with no need for human assistance, their
adoption will probably be resisted by the airlines, until
psychologists come up with an alternative speech as comforting
as the seatbelt speech to replace it with.

Seatbelts are a good topic because they are personal, needing
to be manipulated by every passenger; they are simple to
understand in function and purpose; they are small and
innocuous; they are a reminder of danger/safety; they are a
familiar constraint, which asceding to takes ones mind off of
larger constraints. They relate the unfamiliar world of the
airplane cabin with the familiar world of cars and amusement
rides. (Could amusement rides be a form of training to
prepare children for air travel?)

Conversely, calling cushions "flotation devices" instead of
"life preservers" minimizes the mind's dwelling on danger, a
form of misdirection.

If we were airline psychologists, how could we sum up the goal
of the flight attendant's seatbelt speech?

1. Make the passenger comfortable.
2. Dispel any fears of danger.
3. Make the wait on the runway prior to takeoff seem shorter.
4. Provide useful in-flight information.
5. Promote the airline company by repeated use of its name.
6. Portray the flight attendant as a trained professional.
7. Comply with government regulations.

Postscript -- Later thoughts from 1996:

Three years later, the infamous seatbelt speech is now played over video screens instead of recited by live flight attendants. And it occurrs to me that maybe psychology has nothing to do with the little speech, maybe it never did. It seems more likely to be required by the airlines legal department to minimize liability.