After the Costa Concordia tragedy cruise companies should consider testing their captains and their emotional intelligence, as well as emotional control. Even though tragedies such the one of the Costa Concordia do not occur on daily basis, captains should have the emotional intelligence and control to take charge in such situations and make sure the passengers, crew, and staff have a reliable person to depend on and trust their life.

The cruise lines might have to consider the stability of the captain, but the officers as well. After some of the captains were relieved of their duties, the business consultant Michael Wood presented the idea that psychometric testing should be a common practice in every cruise liner.

It is absolutely common that the behavior of a lot of people can be very proper when they are not faced with a stressful obstacle, but that the behavior in stressful situations may bring up a person to properly respond, or to run away from a certain situation. We all have the instinct to react once we are faced with stress, but it differs from person to person. Meaning once a person is faced with the fight-or-flight response, one always overcomes the other, thus there are certain persons who should be captains and officers, while others should not. People that tend to respond in the flight manner, or in other words run away from the situation, should not take the responsibility as captains or officers. The person who can evaluate the situation under a stress and is able to have a proper emotional control throughout the entire ordeal should be considered to be a captain or an officer. The beauty is that these are testable traits which have been scientifically tested and proven.
Penny Guy from the Passenger Shipping Association presented that today cruise liners are becoming more concerned which lead to incorporation of the psychometric testing in their recruitment, promotion, as well as developmental processes.