Research Shows Female Pilots Are Better Than Male Pilots At This 1 Crucial Skill

Women are amazing on the land and the sea, but especially the skies.

Ever since Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman to earn her pilot’s license in 1910, women have been making their mark in aviation history. Bessie Coleman, Amelia Earhart, Harriet Quimby — all have broken barriers and records. Still, fewer than 10% of pilots are female (9.57% in 2022, according to the Pilot Institute).

A recent study highlighting women’s advantages in the sky might bring a wave of change in that area, though.

Researchers from the University of Waterloo in Canada found that female pilots are better at “keeping control and making decisions in stressful flight scenarios.” The study found that the women had “unique strengths” compared with men, including more stable landing approaches, completing tasks faster in emergency scenarios, and having greater situational awareness than their male counterparts.

“Our study shows that women may be better at keeping control and making decisions in stressful flight scenarios,” lead author Naila Ayala said in a statement. This tracks with other studies that have shown women are less likely to get in flight accidents than men, although again, the striking difference in number of male versus female pilots could contribute to this discrepancy.

This study was small, examining just 20 pilots in a flight simulator, and the authors reiterated that this doesn’t mean female pilots are safer in the cockpit than male ones; rather, they are better-equipped to handle certain stressful situations.

Still, if female pilots can handle stress better than male pilots, what are the larger implications? Is it fair to assume that women are better at multitasking and handling stress than men across all areas?

HuffPost talked with mental health experts about the study’s findings and what everyone can learn from it.

Men and women respond to stress differently due to psychological and cognitive differences. According to Dr. Sharon Batista, a board-certified psychiatrist and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, men are more likely to exhibit a “fight or flight” response to stress, while women will show a “tend and befriend” pattern “characterized by seeking social support and nurturing behaviors.”

“Cognitively, some studies suggest women may maintain or even enhance certain executive functions under stress, whereas men may experience greater impairment in these domains,” Batista told HuffPost.

Not to mention, experience, personality traits and abilities matter, too. “Decision-making under pressure is influenced by several psychological factors, including emotional regulation, cognitive flexibility, working memory and stress resilience,” Batista explained.

Despite cockpit experience and talent, handling stressful situations sometimes comes down to instinct. “Acute stress can narrow attention and increase reliance on habitual or automatic responses, sometimes at the expense of more deliberate, analytical thinking,” she said.

Differences in personality — “such as conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness” — can play a role in how people process information and make choices under stress, she added.

Cynthia Vejar, director and associate professor of clinical mental health counseling at Lebanon Valley College, also expressed this theory. “When people are under pressure, a number of things happen as the body and mind prepare to respond,” Vejar told HuffPost. “The stressful situation narrows attention, or ‘tunnel vision,’ which happens when the brain is juggling too much information and reduces focus to the most immediate stressor.”

Some people may freeze, others may rush into action, and yet others will stay calm and maintain emotional regulation during sudden, stressful situations. “These differences come from a mix of personality and ‘automaticity,’ which is performing tasks automatically and is usually based on how much practice they have had handling stressful situations,” Vejar added.

The fact is, there are so many factors that go into making decisions, operating an airplane, and handling stress, that it’s nearly impossible to pin it all down to differences in sex. However, there are some reasons women have an advantage in situations like this.

Have you ever heard people say that men can’t multitask as well as women? It’s a stereotype, but there is some truth to the fact that many women can juggle more and process more.

“Multitasking and situational awareness are critical in high-stakes environments such as aviation,” Batista said. Multitasking is the ability to “rapidly switch attention between tasks without losing track of priorities,” while situational awareness “involves perceiving, comprehending, and projecting the status of dynamic environments.” Obviously, both are crucial while flying.

“Some evidence suggests women may outperform men in certain multitasking scenarios, possibly due to differences in cognitive processing and attentional control,” Batista said. “Enhanced situational awareness and multitasking ability could contribute to better performance under pressure.”

Vejar explains that situational awareness is important in the air, as pilots need to keep track of many different things at once.

“Doing more than one thing at once while stressed means your multitasking skills must be sharp, and you need to stay emotionally regulated,” she said. “A person’s attentional field is their ability to notice multiple things at once, and it can range in breadth, with a broader attentional field helping them make fewer mistakes.”

The pressure women face in life and the way they are socialized from a young age can make a difference in how they handle stress as well.

“Boys may be encouraged by society to be tough and independent, while girls are taught to pay attention to feelings and help others,” explained Vejar. “These patterns of gender role socialization may impact how adults respond when they are stressed.”

“Socialization plays a significant role in shaping stress responses and coping mechanisms,” Batista noted, adding, “While biological factors are important, the influence of cultural expectations and learned behaviors is substantial.”

And when girls grow up, Vejar said, the pressure “to juggle lots of things at once” can subconsciously teach women how to “prioritize stressful situations” and “stay calm and emotionally regulated under pressure.”

Additionally, women in male-dominated fields are used to even further scrutiny. This may make them “feel a unique set of pressures, and this may heighten their level of vigilance, adaptability and resilience,” Vejar said, “and, as a result, these qualities may help them perform well in stressful situations.”

“There is evidence that women in male-dominated fields develop heightened resilience and coping skills due to increased scrutiny and the need to demonstrate competence,” Batista noted. “This ‘steeling effect’ may contribute to superior performance under pressure, as women become adept at managing both external expectations and internal stress.”

The way many women navigate “multiple roles and expectations” can set them up for success in high-demand environments, according to Batista. This can “foster resilience, adaptability and advanced prioritization skills.”

“Chronic exposure to complex, high-demand environments may enhance executive functioning and stress tolerance, potentially translating to improved performance in high-stakes professions,” Batista added.

Pilots will often take courses in learning how stress affects their performance, and pilots who use learned emotion regulation strategies (like reframing the situation or flexible coping strategies) may have fewer errors in the moment.

“If female pilots use these strategies consistently [even when not flying], they may stay calmer in high-pressure situations,” Vejar said. “This doesn’t mean women are inherently better pilots; it may reflect automaticity, which means how practicing stress management in everyday life carries over to flying.”

“Gender differences in stressful situations aren’t absolute, and they overlap a great deal,” Vejar added. “With training and practice, almost anyone can get better at handling stress in powerful and effective ways.”

In other words, it’s simply a matter of what men and women naturally practice and experience in life and how that enables them to respond to stressful situations differently. If women learn to deal with stress from a young age and men don’t, then that alone might put women at an advantage in high-stress jobs.

As a society, we should be valuing the unique contributions women bring and potentially tailoring training programs to help men learn these valuable coping mechanisms, too.

“While group differences exist, individual variability is significant, and many factors — biological, psychological and social — interact to shape stress responses and performance,” Batista said. “Continued research is needed to further elucidate these mechanisms and to inform training and support for all individuals in high-stress professions.”