• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • 500 OF THE BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychological Safety
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
    • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
    • What is Psychological Safety?
    • Understanding Psychological Terminology
    • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
    • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
    • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Robert Long / Predictably Arational, Safety as a Superstition

Predictably Arational, Safety as a Superstition

September 30, 2020 by Dr Rob Long Leave a Comment

Predictably Arational, Safety as a Superstition

imageOne of the most annoying things about Daniel Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational is that it allows risk and safety people to dismiss aspects of human decision making as stupid when they are not. The framing of the word ‘irrational’ is simply unhelpful. The hidden forces that govern our decisions are mostly non-rational rather than irrational. Whilst Ariely’s book is helpful in understanding human decision making it doesn’t help approach this understanding in a mature way. Ariely tried to rectify this in the following publication The Upside of Irrationality but, continues with the poor ‘anchoring’ and ‘framing’. The fact is many of our decisions are neither irrational nor rational but non-rational (aRational), that is, they should not be considered in a binary or judgmental frame. The way we ‘anchor’ and ‘frame’ our worldview shapes the way we see risk and safety eg. a binary ‘black and white’ frame views decision making as either rational or irrational. Until people in risk and safety get a hold of this distinction people will continue to deal with human decision making in a binary way and totally misunderstand what triggers risk taking and choice in safety. For example, the nonsense idea that ‘safety is a choice you make’ is sustained by this binary construct. The same binary construct promotes black and white goal setting and ‘blindness’ to by-products of target setting and non black and white thinking.

One of the best ways to understand human judgement and decision making is to research such things as gambling, cults, religion and superstitions. These activities are a magnifying glass to human judgment and decision making. If our worldview understands that decision making is a rational process then none of these activities ‘make sense’. The discussion of this blog is just with superstitions, which are arational. The power of superstition is most obvious in the arts, theatre, sport, travel, architecture, business and safety. Perhaps the greatest superstition in safety is the attribution of meaning to injury statistics but I will discuss that later in the blog.

Superstitions are about the sense of control needed in order the face uncertainty. People need to feel confident about risks in the face of uncertainty and so delve into history and patterns looking for causes and reasons why things happen. There is nothing particularly wrong with faith in superstition, most of our sporting stars believe in it, many of our business people think about it and many in the arts live their life by it. The idea that there are unpredictable ‘forces’ at work in the world is evidenced by so many peculiarities that we interpret and attribute these to mysterious causes and luck. Why do so many consult Feng Shui in architecture and design, ‘bless’ ships and transport craft, pray when they get sick or avoid certain numbers and colours in an age of science? You can read about superstitions here:

https://list25.com/25-strangest-superstitions-ever/

Why do so many people consult astrology, maintain traditions in theatre (don’t say the word ‘Macbeth’ but ‘break a leg’) and travel (http://travelblog.viator.com/travel-superstitions/) if the world is truly just binary, rational and scientific? Why do so many sensible and sane people avoid certain behaviours, colours, bad omens, times and language in critical moments if this is all irrational nonsense?

The trouble is science and rationality doesn’t match our experience and ‘feeling’ of risk. Science and rationality doesn’t seem to match the correlations humans make between patterns in life and outcomes? Little did we know that teams lose grand finals for many ‘hidden’ reasons that we are now only just beginning to understand, with the help of social psychology. Many people have a range of rituals and traditions they perform in order to provide comfort in the face of uncertainty. We look back at the grand final and find reasons why we lost or won, those socks will be worn from now on or, I won’t catch a bus to the game any more.

Adam Alter (Drunk Tank Pink) shows that there are many factors that affect risk decision making that are beyond our control. We are radically affected by names, labels, symbols, colour, location, weather and, the presence of others. The temperature and time of day can affect our decision making or even the colour of someone’s shirt. Even a superstition itself can heighten anxiety and hence change a decision. This is the source of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), that is, excessive anxiety about uncertainty and the need to control outcomes by some activity. I have a number of friends who have various forms of OCD and the last thing they need to hear from me is judgmentalism that they are ‘irrational’. We all trust patterns in our living and these provide comfort and predictability. As Neitzsche observed as ‘the twilight of the idols’, we all fear losing a powerful symbol, activity, god or technology that provides comfort. So my friend who must touch all car door handles before he enters the car, will not be helped by me telling him he is an idiot. My friend who must not do shopping on Fridays and not walk on cracks, will not be helped by my labels of ‘irrationality’.

Jack Nicholson portrays the OCD disposition so well in the movie “As Good as it Gets’ and all these superstitions are based on Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE). FAE is also known as ‘confirmation bias’, ‘correspondence bias’ and ‘attribution bias’. These are some of the things we study in the social psychology of risk. There are so many non-rational causes of FAE and risk and safety people would be wise to understand these much better rather than attribute poor decision making to stupidity. The determinist view that ‘safety is a choice you make’ simply fosters blaming, superiority and misattribution of choice. We can’t influence OCD or FAE or, any non-rational worldview with a rationalist response. Neither can we change cultural beliefs with systems responses. The beginning of change and influence is through empathy and understanding and at this stage it seems that safety is not good at neither. ‘Safety engineering’ and ‘safety science’ don’t help safety people understand worldviews and non-rational decision making. Safety is so good at ‘telling’ people they are stupid rather than seeking to understand the choices people make. When we apply belief to Fundamental Attribution Error then OCD takes control. But safety itself is no better, it cannot take any superior view on OCD.

The ways safety delights in counting and injury data is nothing less than OCD and FAE. Counting injury data is a projected comfort that thinks it ‘measures’ everything under its control. In reality, injury data tells us nothing about culture nor provides any certainty about the future. You can’t predict the future by measuring mistakes of the past. Injury data tells us nothing about belief, sub-culture or reasons for decision making. Yet, safety can’t live without injury data. Safety needs injury data to justify its beliefs and its work. It attributes so much meaning to injury data patterns when no such meaning is there, it makes interpretations about ‘regression to the mean’ no less than a football fan attributes winning to a half time ‘pep talk’. The myth of injury data value is heightened by CEOs who also hold the same superstitions about injury data and this endorses deeper OCD and FAE, it’s a cyclic thing no less superstitious than a rabbit’s foot or avoiding the number 13. So much is attributed to injury data that doesn’t make sense but it is rarely challenged.

I was at a conference in Brussels recently where a presenter declared that injury data was motivational, and there was no challenge from the audience. I wonder how the presenter would have coped had someone asked, ‘can you please explain how injury data is motivational?’ ‘How does injury data motivate?’, ‘by what dynamic or force does data motivate?’ But no-one asks this question, most of safety believes the superstition. We keep on demanding reports on what went wrong but rarely learn from it because safety doesn’t understand he fundamental arational drivers of decision making.

Safety would be much better served if it knew more about what people believe and value than counting injuries. This can be done qualitatively by learning how to effectively consult or quantitatively by using such technology as the MiProfile (http://vimeo.com/24764673) diagnostic. Either way safety needs to move on from a deficit worldview and it is not likely until it is able to let go of calculative counting of injury data of course, so effectively ‘primed’ by zero. At the same conference presentation I referred to above, the presenter explained how the organisation was moving from ‘calculative’ thinking to ‘generative’ thinking (Hudson) and then used calculative language and discourse to explain the transition.

In the end most of the noise about being generative in safety is explained in calculative ways, which makes it calculative. The only way to really move from a ‘calculative’ culture in safety is to suspend the superstitious belief in injury data, stop making data a reference point and confess that your organisation is OCD in safety.

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Rob
Dr Rob Long

Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions
Dr Rob Long

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

  • Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual) - January 23, 2023
  • Getting the Balance Right in Tackling Risk - January 23, 2023
  • What is SPoR? - January 23, 2023
  • How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety - January 23, 2023
  • Afraid to Let Go of What Doesn’t Work in Safety - January 17, 2023
Dr Rob Long
PhD., MEd., MOH., BEd., BTh., Dip T., Dip Min., Cert IV TAA, MRMIA Rob is the founder of Human Dymensions and has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including government, education, corporate, industry and community sectors over 30 years. Rob has worked at all levels of the education and training sector including serving on various post graduate executive, post graduate supervision, post graduate course design and implementation programs.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Robert Long, Social Psychology of Risk Tagged With: arational, bias, binary thinking, faith, OCD, Safety, safety moments, superstition

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,495 other subscribers

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

SAFETY MYTHS SERIES

The Mythic Symbology of Safety

Posture Myths and Holistic Ergonomics

Safety Mythbusters

Don’t Be Emotional! Another Safety Myth

Tackling the Challenge of Heuristics in Safety

The Myth of Normal

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Recent Comments

  • Rob long on Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Matt Thorne on Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Anonymous on Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Jason on How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Rob Long on How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Admin on How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Rob Long on 400,000 Free Downloads
  • Gustavo Saralegui on 400,000 Free Downloads
  • Rob long on To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Wynand on To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Rob Long on To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • simon cassin on To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Rob Long on Records of safety activities: evidence of safety or non-compliance?
  • Matt Thorne on Free Online Workshops
  • Rob long on No Good Reason to Follow Reason
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on No Good Reason to Follow Reason
  • Risk Diversity on Book Launch – For the Love of Zero – in Portuguese
  • Rob Long on No Good Reason to Follow Reason
  • Risk Culture Builder on No Good Reason to Follow Reason
  • Mark Taylor on All Things Must Pass in Risk

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • 500 OF THE BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Safety Acronyms
  • What is SPoR?
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators

Recent Posts

  • Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Getting the Balance Right in Tackling Risk
  • What is SPoR?
  • How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Afraid to Let Go of What Doesn’t Work in Safety
  • When You Don’t Know What to do in Safety, Have Another Blitz!!!
  • Gloves and Glasses Compliance
  • A Case of Desensitisation – What Would You Do?
  • How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • The Mythic Symbology of Safety
  • Dark Waters, The True Story of DuPont and Zero
  • 400,000 Free Downloads
  • Am I stupid? I didn’t think of that…
  • Don’t Look Now Safety, Your Metaphor is Showing
  • Ratio Delusions and Heinrich’s Hoax
  • To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Culture as a Wicked Problem, for Safety
  • Safety Leadership Training
  • Cultural Orientation in Risk
  • The Stanford Experiment and The Social Psychology of Risk
  • Objectivity, Audits and Attribution When Calculating Risk
  • Records of safety activities: evidence of safety or non-compliance?
  • Zero, The Seeking of Infinity
  • Safety Leadership Essentials
  • What Can Indiana Jones Tell Us About Culture
  • Safety as a Worldview
  • The Loathing of Limits
  • Culture Cannot be Framed Through Safety
  • Free Online Workshops
  • Safety Culture–Hudson’s Model
  • Book Launch – For the Love of Zero – in Portuguese
  • Advancing Backwards in Safety
  • The ‘Noise’ of Safety, Silence and Practicing of Mindfulness
  • All Things Must Pass in Risk
  • I’m just not that into safety anymore
  • Sticks and Stones and the Nonsense of Zero Harm
  • Courting Infallibility in Safety
  • Indicators of Risk
  • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
  • No Good Reason to Follow Reason
  • Just as Well Culture Doesn’t Listen to Safety
  • What Are the Benefits Of Social Psychology of Risk?
  • Short-Sighted Lenses by Safety
  • Is Safety the Empire of Non-Sense?
  • No Wonder Safety is Confused About Culture
  • Building High Performance Safety Cultures
  • Understanding iCue, a Visual, Verbal, Semiotic Method for Tackling Risk
  • On Culture and Safety
  • Focus on ‘Meeting’ people, not legislation – a path to risk maturity
  • The Moral Harm of the Zero Cult

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

An Ethical Psychology of Risk

Utopian Language and the Quest for Perfection in Safety

What Are the Benefits Of Social Psychology of Risk?

Emotions are not the Adversary

Please Don’t Try to Fix Me – I’m Not a Machine

Holistic Responses to Mental Health

WHS Legislation is NOT about Safety it’s about Culture

We need to make sure this can never happen again

Why Have Some Freedom in Safety When a Dose of Fear and Guilt Will Do?

Positives and Negatives in Dialectic in Safety

Shopping for Safety

What Does Your Risk and Safety Icon Say?

The Social Psychology of Risk Event Exploration (Investigation) Knowledge

Intuition and Safety

Like a Collective Brain Snap

Right and Wrong in Safety

The Perils of Excessive Safety Management Systems

The Power in Silence

The Rational, aRational and Irrational in Safety

The Mystery and Paradox of Being an Individual in a Social World

The Safety Worldview

Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts

When ‘Hearts and Minds’ are not ‘Hearts and Minds’

The Psychology of Leadership in Risk

200,000 SPoR Book Downloads

Free Download – Tackling Risk, A Field Guide to Risk and Learning

The ‘Noise’ of Safety, Silence and Practicing of Mindfulness

Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk (CLLR)–Study Calendar

Safety – Just a Few Bad Apples

Shock and Fear in Safety

Free Safety and Risk Lunch n Learn

Why Some People Never Achieve

Semiotics and Safety

Social Psychology of Risk – Body of Knowledge

Clarity Enabled

Looking for Another Side

Selective Harm for Rio Tinto

Understanding Just Culture

Non-Binary Decision Making in Risk

Behaviourist Neuroscience as Safety

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,495 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?