An American flying out of Tokyo had a really bad day after he was arrested and kicked off a flight. Credit: Corey Hour via Storyful <\/p>\n
Police intervene in an attack on board a taxiing plane in China. Picture: weibo.com\/Doo-voo <\/p>\n
FLYING can be a stressful experience but lately it seems that tempers have been running much higher than usual. <\/p>\n
Brawls and spats between passengers seem to be happening more often than usual, and while some people have blamed cost-cutting at airlines for frayed tempers, others are laying blame at another door: social media. <\/p>\n
A new article on Quartz has linked the increase in fights on planes to the psychological phenomenon called behaviour contagion, The Sun reports. <\/p>\n
Behaviour contagion was first coined in the late 1800s by the academic Gustave Le Bon, who used it to describe the bad behaviour people displayed when they were in a crowd. <\/p>\n
In-cabin brawls are frequently captured on camera and uploaded to social media.Source:Supplied <\/p>\n
The theory goes that peoples behaviour worsens after seeing someone else display anti-social behaviour. By witnessing the first person doing it, the behaviour seems less offensive to the second person and they follow suit. <\/p>\n
But thanks to smartphones and the internet, people no longer have to be in a crowd to be affected by behaviour contagion they can watch it all unfold on social media. <\/p>\n
In a paper by Paul Marsden of Stanford University called Memetics & Social Contagion, the writer addresses the ease with which behaviour contagion can travel. <\/p>\n
Recent research has unequivocally established the fact of the social contagion phenomenon, and has identified its operation in a number of areas of social life, he said. <\/p>\n
An American traveller was charged with assault after an incident on an All Nippon Airways flight at Tokyos Narita Airport in May. Picture: Twitter\/KeemSource:Supplied <\/p>\n
The implications of this social contagion research are radical: the evidence suggests that under certain circumstances, mere touch or contact with culture appears to be a sufficient condition for social transmission to occur. <\/p>\n
So every time footage of an aeroplane brawl is shared on social media, certain viewers become less offended by the actions and more likely to imitate them. <\/p>\n
For instance, last November a Ryanair flight from Brussels to Malta was forced to land in Pisa, Italy, after a passenger brawl that saw an elderly woman hit in the head and a flight attendant slapped. <\/p>\n
Then in February, two passengers claiming to be lawyers became embroiled in a heated argument over an armrest on a Monarch Airways flight from London Gatwick to Malaga in Spain. <\/p>\n
Police intervene in an attack on board a taxiing plane in China. Picture: weibo.com\/Doo-vooSource:Supplied <\/p>\n
And just this month, two men were filmed throwing punches at each other on a Japanese plane ending in the arrest of a boozed-up American traveller at Tokyos Narita Airport. <\/p>\n
The same week, two travellers brawled in the aisle of a Southwest Airlines flight after their plane touched down in California. <\/p>\n
Whether social media is in part to blame has yet to be proven, but all of these incidents were widely shared on the internet. <\/p>\n
So now theres yet another reason to lay off the social media on holiday: it could help curb the air rage on the way home. <\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission. <\/p>\n
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American Arrested After Airplane Brawl in Tokyo - NEWS.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An American flying out of Tokyo had a really bad day after he was arrested and kicked off a flight. Credit: Corey Hour via Storyful Police intervene in an attack on board a taxiing plane in China Continue reading