The Double-Edged Sword of Self-Efficacy: Implications for Automation-Induced Complacency

Crew “complacency” has often been implicated as a contributing factor in aviation accidents. Complacency has been defmed as “self-satisfaction which may result in nonvigilance based on an unjustified assumption of satisfactory system state” (Billings et al., 1976). The term has become more prominent with the increase in automation technology in modem cockpits. As a consequence, there has also been an increase in research to understand the nature of complacency and to identify countermeasures to its onset. Parasuraman, Molloy, and Singh (1993) noted that complacency arises from overconfidence in automation reliability. They found that operators missed “automation failures” when the automated system was highly reliable. Riley (1996) reported that an operator’s decision to rely on automation may actually depend on a complex relationship between level of trust in the system, self-confidence, and other factors. Lee and Moray (1994) also found that trust in automation and self-confidence can influence decisions to use or not to use automation, but that there were large individual differences. The idea of individual differences was examined recently by Singh, M&y, & Parasuraman (1993a). They reported a modest relationship between individual differences in complacency potential and energetic-arousal with automation-related monitoring ineffIciency. The present study sought to further explore the effects of individual differences in automation use. Specifically, we examined the generalizability of self-efficacy in monitoring performance and its relationship to automationinduced complacency.