Why do people make decisions to engage in risky and unsafe actions? Is it motivation, cognition or both? Over the past several decades psychological research has been conducted to help us understand the relationship between our motives and our decisions. This presentation examines some of the Human Factors research that addresses these questions in an attempt to provide both answers and solutions to reducing risk taking in the workplace.

1. The Human Side of Safety
Motivation & Cognition
Ron D. Ragain, Ph.D.

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HUMAN FACTORS
What is it?
Accounting for the interaction
between humans and other
elements of the system when
designing an environment
Human Factors

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HUMAN FACTORS in
SAFETY
Leverages our understanding
of cognition, social behaviors,
biomechanics (etc.) to design
environments in which people
perform
safely.
Human Factors

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Historical Perspective
WWII: New and highly
complex weapons had to
account for the “human
limitations” of operators in
their design.
Human Factors

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Human Factors
We Will Examine Two Components
‣ Motivation
‣ Cognition

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mo·ti·va·tion
ˌmōdəˈvāSH(ə)n/
The general desire or
willingness of someone
to do something.
Motivation

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Motivation
Approaches to Understanding Motivation
‣ Attributional
‣ Competency

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Motivation
Attributional Explanation of Behavior
‣ Dispositional Attributes
‣ Internal, personality related variables
‣ Situational Attributes
‣ External, environmental variables

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The Problem with the
Attributional Approach:
The Actor-Observer Cognitive Bias
&
The Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)
Motivation

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Motivation
Competency Explanation of Behavior
‣ Actively attempting to understand and successfully
engage the environment/context
‣ Intrinsic desire to be competent & successful

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Motivation
Increasing Intrinsic Motivation
‣ Autonomous, successful accomplishment
‣ Increases self-worth & desire to take initiative

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Motivation
People Don’t Want to Get Hurt!
‣ They are intrinsically motivated to be safe
‣ How do we capitalize on this?
‣ Increase autonomy
‣ Explain the reasons for safety procedures
‣ Allow involvement in decision making

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Motivation
People Don’t Want to Get Hurt!
‣ Edward Deci (1995)
‣ The more controlled people feel, the more risk they
are likely to take!
‣ Your Safety Program?

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A Very “Heady” Topic
cog·ni·tion
käɡˈniSH(ə)n/
The mental action or process
of acquiring knowledge,
understanding through
thought, experience, and the
senses, and making decisions
based on interpretation of
those mental actions.
Cognition

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What in the world
were they thinking?
Cognition

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Decision Making
• Daniel Kahneman (2011),
“Thinking, Fast & Slow”
• System 1 (Fast)
• System 2 (Slow)
Cognition

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Cognition
System 1 (Fast)
‣ Operates automatically, rapidly and with very little
latency, effort, voluntary control or “thought”
‣ Depends on past experience with similar events

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Cognition
System 2 (Slow)
‣ Functions as an Executive
‣ Involves active concentration and choice
‣ Involves the active retrieval of information from long-
term memory into working memory where it can be
evaluated and compared to current perceptual
information to make “thoughtful”, calculated
decisions

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Cognition
Utilization of Systems 1 & 2
‣ We use System 1 the most often.
‣ Why?
‣ Why not?
‣ Why don’t we use System 2 more often?
‣ Effort
‣ Cognitive Biases, e.g. Actor-Observer Bias

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Cognition
Decision Making
‣ Can be driven by either System 1 or 2.
‣ Rational or Irrational?
‣ Almost aways rational to the person making it.
‣ Often irrational to outside observers.
‣ Right or Wrong?
‣ Usually determined by the outcome.

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What in the world were they
thinking?
•Was he engaged in System 1, System 2 or
both?
•What was he attending to? What was
salient?
•What was his motivational state & could it
be a factor in his decision?
•What aspects of his past experience/LTM
could have influenced his cognitive
processing including his decisions?
•Was his decision “locally rational”?
Motivation & Cognition

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What in the world were they
thinking?
•What impact do the answers to these
questions have on prevention?
Motivation & Cognition

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The Human Side of Safety
Questions?

24. Resources for You
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Ron Ragain
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Phillip Ragain
18th @ 1:15 & 2:45

25. The Human Side of Safety
Motivation & Cognition
Ron D. Ragain, Ph.D.