• 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 AND WORST 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
    • Psychosocial Safety
    • Resiliencing
    • 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
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • 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 / Risk Psychometrics, Spin and Snake Oil

Risk Psychometrics, Spin and Snake Oil

February 8, 2023 by Dr Rob Long 5 Comments

Originally posted on May 6, 2013 @ 10:59 AM

Risk Psychometrics, Spin and Snake Oil

Latest article by Dr Robert Long from www.humandymensions.com.au.

A great quote from the article:

So, let us name safety psychometrics for what it is. Safety psychometrics is workforce eugenics as if humans are not human, as if the absolute of zero is cause for absolute control of humans, as if risk is the enemy, as if fear is how we should live and as if learning and imagination are not required for the creation of safe workplaces. If one wants a human workforce, then robots won’t do.

ENJOY:

Depositphotos_13949903_xsThe recent boom in sales marketing by companies promising to eliminate risk takers and unsafe people from the workforce shows that there is good money to be made from spin and safety snake oil. The problem is not only that claims made by these companies are founded on eugenic assumptions and pseudo science but more, such ideas are dangerous, non-creative and anti-learning.

There are several tests to assess the validity and presence of snake oil. Try these:

1. One of the best ways to assess snake oil promotion is to consider the by-products of such promotion. Don’t be blindsided by wanting to believe the promises, what is hidden? What by-products are hidden by the promises?

2. Another test of snake oil promotion is to see if the principles, assumptions and practices of such spin are applied to executives and advocates. If not, why not? It seems that snake oil is always good for ‘other people’.

3. Assess whether what is being proposed is simple and ‘too good to be true’. It is likely that it is. Humans are complex and any proposal that is simplistic is wishful thinking.

4. See if what is proposed applies any sense of absolutes or perfectionism to fallible human beings.

5. Also, see how much certainty is guaranteed by what is proposed, the level of control proposed and, if what is proposed assumes about human nature, choice and freedom.

6. Think about what kind of organization would result from a roll out of psychometrics. Who would then be running the organization? What level of determinism is embedded in such an organization?

7. How much is the attraction of the proposed snake oil a wish for an easy solution to a complex problem? Is this why it is so attractive? How much is the snake oil marketed to your problem? Is it ‘off the shelf’, that’s easy? How does ‘one size fit all’?

8. Another test of snake oil is, testing trajectory, that is, where is this going? What is often proposed in the short-term sounds good but in the long term is in fact dangerous and destructive. So, the first attribute of any safety professional needs to be the ability to be longsighted.

9. The test of ethics should be applied to all snake oil, not just for the moment but, for the long haul. What values are hidden in the small print? What beliefs and assumptions are hidden in the subtext? For example, is manipulation of human populations ethical, even thought the proposed practices have a good intention?

10. The test of ideology should also be applied to the promises of snake oil marketing. Is what is proposed an ideology? That is, an all controlling perspective that becomes an unmovable system in itself, that cannot be challenged? So much so, that any challenge is made into a binary opposite such that opposition is understood to be an evil in itself?

When it comes to some of the recent marketing in psychometrics in risk, one has to wonder why there is such a market for this stuff. Have we reached such an end in the road in risk aversion that we now have to engineer (eugenics) the human workforce in our fear of risk and quest for zero? What is the by-product of trying to engineer out risk from a population? Why has such an honourable aspiration to reduce harm led to the manipulation of the workforce?

There is no learning without risk. The quest for risk aversion is the quest for non-learning. If we seek to take risk takers out of a workforce, we seek (as a by-product) to have a non-learning, risk averse, robot-like workforce that can’t think, are blindly obedient and unable to innovate, create and imagine. This is what psychometric engineering (eugenics) proposes. I have written about this previously (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-eugenics-and-the-engineering-of-risk-aversion/ ). Of course, without imagination, creativity and innovation, we make a less safe workplace. If one takes imagination out of the workforce, how can we hope to manage the uncertain (risk) and the unexpected?

When we look at the promises of recent marketed safety psychometrics we must ask ourselves what kind of humans we want at work? We must think what attributes are taken out of the workforce in this paranoia and fear of risk?

Recent research by Davidson and Begley (The Emotional Life of Your Brain) shows that much of what is assumed in psychometrics is not matched by research in neuroscience. Whilst some aspects of psychometrics are helpful, it has never been accepted (by scholars of psychology) that psychometrics be used as some kind of engineering (eugenics) foundation for manipulation of a population.

So, let us name safety psychometrics for what it is. Safety psychometrics is workforce eugenics as if humans are not human, as if the absolute of zero is cause for absolute control of humans, as if risk is the enemy, as if fear is how we should live and as if learning and imagination are not required for the creation of safe workplaces. If one wants a human workforce, then robots won’t do.

  • 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)

  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’! - May 24, 2023
  • Understanding Safety as a Cultural Reproductive Process - May 23, 2023
  • Thinking Outside the Safety Bubble - May 21, 2023
  • Understanding Language Influencing, A Video - May 21, 2023
  • Safetie - May 21, 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, Zero Harm Tagged With: risk psychometrics, risk takers, Safe Behaviour, snake oil, Zero Harm

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 7,521 other subscribers

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Chris. on It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Pierre Joubert on Zero Doesn’t Work, Road Fatalities Increase
  • James on We are all equal
  • Rob Long on We are all equal
  • James Parkinson on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Admin on We are all equal
  • James Parkinson on We are all equal
  • Rob Long on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Simon Cassin on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Simon Cassin on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe

The KISS of Death in Safety

Is Your Safety World Too Small?

You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time

When Safety (Zero) is Abusive

Hands Up the Best Safety Fraud!

Communicating Professionally in Risk

How NOT to be Professional in Safety

How NOT to do Anything About Culture in Building and Construction

Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

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
  • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’!
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • Ratio Delusions and Heinrich’s Hoax
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • Safety Acronyms
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS

Recent Posts

  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’!
  • My Story is Better than Yours
  • Understanding Safety as a Cultural Reproductive Process
  • The Unconscious and the Soap Dispenser
  • Thinking Outside the Safety Bubble
  • Understanding Language Influencing, A Video
  • Safetie
  • You are NOT the Sum of Safety
  • Update on SPoR in India, Brazil and Europe
  • It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Safety at the Margins
  • Research Basics for Safety
  • We Need Communities and They Need Us
  • Researching Within The Safety Echo Chamber
  • Confirmation Bias, Risk and Being Offensive
  • Lemmings for Lemmings in Leadership and Risk
  • Expertise by Regurgitation and Re-Badging
  • Zero Doesn’t Work, Road Fatalities Increase
  • Can There Be Other Valid Worldviews Than Safety?
  • Evaluating Value by the Value of What You Don’t Know
  • Reality vs Theory, The Binary Divide
  • No Paradigm Shift with BBS
  • The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Is Your Safety World Too Small?
  • What Does Safety Achieve?
  • In Praise of Balance in Risk and the Threat of Extremism
  • We are all equal
  • You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • What in the (Risk & Safety) World is Imagination?
  • iCue Engagement Process
  • SPoR, Metanoia and a Podcast on Change with Nippin Anand
  • For the Monarchists of Safety
  • The Sully Effect
  • All Things Must Pass in Risk
  • Scapegoating and Safety
  • Understanding Habit, Habituation and Change
  • Don’t Mention the War
  • Safety in Design for Who by Who?
  • Beyond ‘What We Do Around Here’
  • Asking the Wrong Questions
  • When Safety (Zero) is Abusive
  • Mandala as a Method for Tackling an Ethic of Risk (a Video)
  • Safety Cosmetics
  • Visualising the EHS Role
  • Towards Dumb
  • Workshops with Dr Long – Vienna, Austria 26-30 June 2023
  • Visual, Verbal and Relational Mapping in Risk Assessment
  • Abduction in Risk and Safety
  • Creating Myths and Rituals in Safety
  • The Safe Christmas Psychosis

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

I am a Spreadsheet King

The Lexicon of Safety Gibberish

Challenges and Opportunities for Learning in a Crisis

Workshop – Introduction to the Social Psychology of Risk

Humanising Safety Free Virtual Conference

Stand Behind The Yellow Line – Do Engineering Controls Affect Risk?

Risk, Safety and Fundamental Attribution Error

Safety is an Art

Something’s gotta give..

The Domino Myth in Safety

Banning Head Protection is Safer

Social Psychology of Risk Workshop-Sydney

We Are Such Experts….

The Psychic Effect of Safety

The Paradox of Positivism for Safety

Censorship and Taboos in Safety

Binary Opposites and Safety Goal Strategy

The Last Thing is, Don’t Start with Safety

The Trajectory of Zero Vision

The Heart of Wisdom at Covid Time

Brain-Centredness and Occular-Centredness in Risk

Speaking Truth to Power and Safety

Psychology of Risk Post Graduate Program Suspended ‘til 2017

Courage to Challenge the Great TRIFR and LTIFR Delusion

Making Sense of Safety Management Systems

The Foundations of Safety

What is a Safety and Risk ‘Thinking Group’?

Do we Need a Different Way of Being in Safety?

Critical Thinking and Questioning in Safety

The Soul of Mental Health

How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety

We can Value Safety but Safety is not a Value

Study Social Psychology of Risk Online in 2018

New Video Series on Safety

So, You Want Culture Change

Shopping for Safety

And the Innovation is? More Controls…..

Process driven or People driven? What’s your Focus?

Mental Health, Risk and Safety

Post Graduate Safety Potato Heads

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 7,521 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?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY

x
x