Skyjacking, airline security, and passenger reactions: Toward a complex model for prediction.

To determine passenger reactions to skyjacking and related airline and governmental security measures, attitude questionnaires were administered to a random sample of 102 passengers at a large midwestern airport. Results indicate (a) 3 response dimensions failed to differentially relate passenger attitudes to 7 proposed security procedures; (b) a general construct, "overall concern for security," did not adequately account for passenger reactions to specific security measures; and (c) 8 orthogonal factors represented different attitude constructs for specific passenger subgroups. It is concluded that there is no typical airline passenger exhibiting an overall concern for security against skyjacking. Rather, a complex model of passenger attitudes and their behavioral correlates must be constructed in order to account adequately for passenger reactions to security programs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)