To provide references for improving the psychological support to fighter pilots by the investigation on their emotional states and typical negative emotions in different task stages and common causes during major tasks.

The Chinese version of Brunel Mood Scale was used to evaluate the emotional states of 141 high performance fighter pilots in the stages of assignment, pre-task, in-task and post-task. The scores of the scale and the positive rate of the evaluation were analyzed by descriptive statistics. Combined with the on-the-spot interview of pilots′ actual experience, the causes of negative emotions were discussed.

The negative emotions with the score greater than 1 were "exhausted" "worried" "uncertain" "extreme fatigue" "anxious" "tired" "nervous". The positive rate of pilots′ self-evaluation of 7 emotions was more than 80%. There were 2-5 typical negative emotions in each stage of the task, which were mainly caused by 3 factors: task adaptation, interpersonal communication and family. The scores of 3 positive emotions were more than 2.8, and the positive rate of pilots′ self-assessment was 100%. Positive emotions were higher in the first 2 stages, decreased significantly in the task stage and increased slightly after the task.

The apparent negative emotions exist among the high performance fighter pilots in major tasks. The corresponding regulations and protections should be applied in time in the form of psychological intervention, especially on the maintenance of task adaptation, interpersonal communication and family harmony.

Stress, Psychological; Emotions; Expressed emotion; Pilots