BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Health Psychology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1612940

This article is part of the Research TopicIntegrating Health Psychology in Practice: Enhancing Well-being and Improving Health Outcomes Across Diverse ContextsView all 16 articles

The symbolizations emerging from aviation crew members' perspectives on well-being: A linguistic analysis using emotional text mining

Provisionally accepted
  • 1Department of Dynamic, Clinical Psychology and Health, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
  • 2Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
  • 3IT-APA (Italia-Associazione Psicologia dell’Aviazione), Via Duccio di Buoninsegna 22, 00142, Rome,, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Background: Well-being is a complex and structured construct recently studied in aviation, primarily through self-report measures. The primary aim of this study is to explore aviation crews' representations of well-being using the Emotional Text Mining (ETM) method. A secondary aim is to examine whether different representations are associated with occupational variables.Method: 492 participants (302 males) completed an online survey via SurveyMonkey, including an open-ended question prompting them to describe their perception of well-being. Additionally, socio-occupational variables were collected. The texts were analyzed using ETM, identifying how a social group emotionally symbolizes a topic.The analysis revealed three clusters: (1) Material and Family Stability, (2) Individual Self-Development, and (3) Connection and Social Realization. These clusters are positioned within a factorial space defined by two factors: one contrasting individual vs. social representations of well-being and the other differentiating well-being as a set of given elements vs. an active, evolving process. No associations with occupational variables were found. The findings suggest a concept of well-being in which the work dimension is considered only marginally, primarily for its material and economic value, and not as part of a broader sense of personal fulfilment. Administering the survey within a workplace setting may have heightened social desirability bias, potentially influenced by fears of professional repercussions.

Keywords: wellbeing, Aviation, aviation crew members, Emotional text mining, Psychological service

Received: 16 Apr 2025; Accepted: 03 Jun 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Renzi, Reho, Tomai, Scialanga and Cordella. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Alessia Renzi, Department of Dynamic, Clinical Psychology and Health, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

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