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:
The 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.
Dr Rob Long
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