Are We Blundering Our Way Through Safety?
Some of the most series cognitive traps are evident in how the safety industry has evolved. In this week’s post I explore how Zachary Shore’s seven cognitive traps have shaped and continue to shape how the Safety function has gone off the rails. I hope you will give it a read and tell me what you think.- Phil
Latest article by Phil LaDuke http://rockfordgreeneinternational.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/are-we-blundering-our-way-through-safety/
I recently finished Zachary Shore’s Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions. Shore is a historian is an associate professor of national security affairs at the Naval Post Graduate School and a senior fellow at the UC Berkley Institute of European Studies. In Blunder Shore examines why historical notables make mistakes even though they are well educated and of above average intelligence.
Central to Shore’s analysis is the concept of cognitive traps, and these traps have eerie parallels to how the prevalent theories of worker safety have gone of the rails.
Shore identifies seven “cognitive traps”, that is, seven mental states that can cause people to make misjudgements or “blunders”. The cognitive traps that Shore identifies are: Exposure Anxiety, Causefusion, Flatview, Cure-Allism, Infomania, Mirror Imaging, and Static Cling. Each of these cognitive traps can be seen in the root of most of the major misconceptions of safety: that 96% of all worker injuries are caused by unsafe behaviour.
The article explains the following interesting concepts:
Exposure Anxiety
Causefusion
Cure-Allism
Infomania
Mirror Imaging
Static Cling
Read more HERE
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