• 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
    • 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 / Risk Management / Ritual Performance and Risk

Ritual Performance and Risk

June 24, 2022 by Dr Rob Long 2 Comments

Ritual Performance and Risk

safety pulpitOne of the by-products and effects of safety bureaucracy is the reduction of personal agency. That is, people are controlled by process, systems and rituals rather than by relationship, interactive engagement and human mediation. The process of displacement then makes paperwork the goal of the process not its method to an outcome. then Why should I have a conversation with someone or surface their unconscious when a checklist will do? Why engage in communal enactment when an audit of objects will do the trick? Count the hazards, produce a report and police behaviours.

Unfortunately, many associate the use of the language of ‘ritual’ with religious observance but this is not so. In recent years there has been extensive research in Anthropology, Social Psychology, Educational Cognition and Neuroscience into non-religious ritual:

  • Baker, S., (2014) Social Tragedy, The Power of Myth, Ritual and Emotion in the New Media Ecology. Palgrave. New York.
  • Bell, C., (2007) Teaching Ritual. Oxford, London.
  • Bell, C., (2009) Ritual Theory and Practice. Oxford, London.
  • Furst, P., (1999) Flesh of the Gods, The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. Waveland Press. Long Grove.
  • McLaren, P., (1999) Schooling as Ritual Performance. Toward a Political Economy of Educational Symbols and Gestures. Bowman and Littlefield. London.
  • Miller, A., (2012) Healing the Unimaginable, Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control. Karnac. London.
  • Rapport, R., (1999) Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge, London.
  • Schechner, R., (1995) The Future of Ritual. Writings on Culture and Performance. Routledge. London.
  • Sherwin, D., and Shewin, M., (2018) Turning People Into Teams, Rituals and Routines That Redesign How We Work. BK Publishers.
  • Stephenson, B., (2015) Ritual, A Short Introduction. Oxford, London.
  • Turner, V., (1982) From Ritual to Theatre, The Human Seriousness of Play. PAJ Pub., New York.

I have also written blogs before about ritual:

  • https://safetyrisk.net/shared-ritual-in-the-safety-congregation/
  • https://safetyrisk.net/practice-repetition-habit-routine-ritual-and-decision-making-in-risk/
  • https://safetyrisk.net/ritual-as-embodied-learning-in-safety/
  • https://safetyrisk.net/loathing-fallibility-and-rituals-of-safety/
  • https://safetyrisk.net/safety-as-ritual-performance/
  • https://safetyrisk.net/safety-sacraments-and-rituals/
  • https://safetyrisk.net/risk-and-safety-rituals/

I once had a clash with a safety person when I used the word ‘ritual’ in relation to enactments of safety. The person became indignant, how dare I use such a word for the repetitive heuristics associated with saving lives? So, I asked him if he had ever studied about rituals, had any studies in Anthropology or Sociology, studied anything in political ecology or economy and the answer was no, but he was sure there was no rituals in safety.

One of the first books I ever read on ritual was by McLaren who uses the word ‘ritual’ to describe the symbols, myths, gestures and cultural processes of schooling. At the time I was lecturing students in Education at Canberra University and not one student in the cohort of 350 (discussed in tutorials) thought the word was out of place.

One is not likely to understand the nature of ritual without some engagement with: semiotics as a language, gesture as a language, cultural studies, Anthropology, Linguistics, Religious Studies or Social Psychology. None of these disciplines are known to the engineering-behaviourist worldview of safety.

imageIn a previous occupation and in work in community, family and youth services I encountered endless numbers of people who had been victims of ‘ritual abuse’. I found the work so personally distressing that I had to give up that work after only 3 years. My brother Graham was able to stay in such an environment helping victims of ritual abuse for over 40 years. You can read about Graham’s amazing work here:

  • https://safetyrisk.net/thats-not-a-knife-thats-a-knife/
  • https://safetyrisk.net/not-much-like-safety/
  • https://safetyrisk.net/you-dont-need-to-be-a-hero-to-be-a-safety-leader/
  • https://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/
  • http://www.revgrahamlong.com/about/
  • https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/central-sydney/reverend-graham-long-reflects-
  • https://www.amazon.com.au/Wayside-Reverend-Graham-Long/dp/1742234887
  • https://www.amazon.com.au/Love-Over-Hate-Graham-Long-ebook

I think you have to be specially gifted to sustain such work.

Ritual abuse refers to any organized repetitive action that is situated. Rappaport suggests that rituals involve ‘the performance of more or less invariant sequences of formal acts and utterances not entirely encoded by the performers’. It is important to understand the notion of ‘performance’ in its holistic sense (see Elam http://lanlib.alzahra.ac.ir/multiMediaFile/2231244-4-1.pdf ). Unfortunately in safety, the word performance has become to mean some behaviourist goop about outcomes, behaviours and policing. Rituals are about performative acts NOT for assessment but that create salvic meaning and purpose by their enactment. Eg. in safety, a risk assessment is deemed to ‘save lives’.

In Neuroscience there has been some research about the neurobiologic mediation of rituals. That is, the ritual creates embodied memory through performance. In a similar way we remember many things without thinking by heuristics, habits and routines. The orbitofrontal cortex regulates the emotional limbic system and production of dopamine. In this way, the enhanced dopamine creates strong attachment to embodied acts and embodied attachment to memories, performance and satisfaction in process. This also helps explain why in ritual abuse sometimes the victims become attached to the perpetrator, despite the abuse. Indeed, the enactment of the abuse gives certainty and attachment.

You can watch more about this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQC_8jwCtbo. It is a sad fact that there has been so much ritual abuse of children in Australia (https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/our-inquiry ).

However, when we think of ritual we don’t need to consider some elaborate or planned act. We all exercise rituals daily just in greetings by hand shake (or nods and elbow bumps during Covid19) and uttering ‘hello’ as acts of politeness. All of our acts of greeting help create social cohesion and trust. The importance of gesture by resonance is well demonstrated (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0 ). In a similar way, we can affect the mood of a room by our gestures and presence.

When rituals are enacted they take over the control of the behaviour of the individual. The performer effectively puts themselves into the hands of the ritual. The ritual then controls the performance and the participants become actors.

In ritual, one forgets oneself and allows the ritual to enact its heuristic effectiveness or ineffectiveness. It doesn’t really matter, once the ritual is enacted, it’s very enactment becomes the outcome so that any measurable outcome becomes irrelevant. It is in the feeling of the behaviour (the embodiment of the act) that the dopamine receptors are triggered and the emotional satisfaction of performance triggers certainty. As long as the ritual is undertaken then something effective must have happened.

All ritual promotes an ‘historical consciousness’ and ‘tradition’. We see this in ‘safety minutes’, ‘safety shares’ and ‘safety moment’. Once the ritual is empowered it is difficult to take away, like all traditions and rituals, we are creatures seeking certainty. Taking away a ritual often creates an anxiety that its demise promotes anti-safety, despite the fact that the ritual doesn’t work (that is not effective).

Why is understanding ritual so Important for safety?

First of all, we need to understand that ritual is not inherently ‘bad’. However, reflection and critique of the many processes of safety that are ritualized ought to be a regular activity of leading in safety. If one simply wants to keep a ritual for its symbolic importance then fine, but watch out for attributions of certainty to processes because they instil hubris and overconfidence, which increases risk. The trouble is, the engineering-behaviourist-compliance culture of safety often cements in place rituals that don’t work that are attributed as effective.

I often ask in the Profile survey (https://www.humandymensions.com/services-and-programs/miprofile/ ) if workers feel that safety messaging and acts are excessive. In the last survey with a construction company this was ranked at 96%. What a strange outcome that in hyper-safety (see Amalberti Navigating Safety (2013) we see worker’s desensitized to safety? How interesting that when one crusades about safety (read fixation as safety ‘geek’, safety ‘warrior’, safety ‘hero’ etc) that one makes workplaces less safe!

Of course, Zero is the greatest creator of ritual. When one engages with the absolute and perfection, one needs rituals to confirm the effectiveness and security/certainty of the ideology. We see this in global safety where ordinary daily safety rituals (https://visionzero.global/resources ) are imbued with salvic purpose. Didn’t you know that Zero can restore sight, make limbs grow back and heal cancer? There is nothing more certain that the way Zero creates religious ritual in the face of fallibility.

One of the main reasons in understanding rituals is to raise consciousness of rituals, where they occur, what they do, how they work and whether they help in tackling risk. This is where we become more aware of meaningful and meaningless ritual. One of the most important things in reflection is to embrace rituals that work in helping people tackle risk and jettison rituals that create desensitization to risk and overconfidence in risk.

If you are interested in learning more about ritual and risk, you might like to study with Dr Nippin Anand as he explores rituals in risk management (https://novellus.solutions/events/ ).

  • 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)

  • Not Just Another ‘Hazard’ - February 3, 2023
  • How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety - February 2, 2023
  • Free Download – Real Risk – New Book by Dr Robert Long - February 2, 2023
  • ISO 45003 and What it Cannot Do - February 1, 2023
  • Harming People in the Name of Good - January 31, 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: Risk Management, Robert Long Tagged With: neuroscience, rituals, wayside chapel

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Brent Charlton says

    June 28, 2022 at 10:42 AM

    I have been told more than once I’m not much of a safety person because of my aversion to useless checklists. Just ask the question “does that checklist prove the ladder is ok to use or that the paper was filled out?” Now watch the $41t hit the fan! If the crew is not using broken ladders that’s more important than the paper, I think. My suggestion of having a talk about what’s going in on the job and what they’re doing is much more helpful. Oh I see, so what do you do if the ladder is broken? Nobody ever said “I use it anyway because I don’t care if I get hurt.” I’m beginning to wear the tag “not much of a safety person” proudly!

    Reply
    • Rob Long says

      June 28, 2022 at 2:54 PM

      Brent, I think I’d wear that label as a badge of honour.

      Reply

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 7,500 other subscribers

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

Not Just Another ‘Hazard’

Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?

How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety

ISO 45003 and What it Cannot Do

The KISS of Death in Safety

Behavioural Safety is NOT a Foundation for Tackling Psychosocial and Mental Health

The Worst Approach to Psychosocial Problems is an Attitude of ‘Fixing’

The Language of ‘Hazards’ and Psychosocial, Mental Health

Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)

No Good Reason to Follow Reason

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • simon p cassin on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • simon p cassin on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • Rob long on How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety
  • Rob Long on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • Rob Long on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • Matt Thorne on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • simon p cassin on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • Hurak Learning on How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety
  • Rob Long on An Advanced Understanding of Culture – A Video
  • Paul Gentles on An Advanced Understanding of Culture – A Video
  • Brent Charlton on The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Rob Long on The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Brian on The Language of ‘Hazards’ and Psychosocial, Mental Health
  • Jaise on The Language of ‘Hazards’ and Psychosocial, Mental Health
  • Rob Long on Posture Myths and Holistic Ergonomics
  • Linda McKendry on Posture Myths and Holistic Ergonomics
  • 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)

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

  • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • Proving Safety
  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • ISO 45003 and What it Cannot Do
  • NATIONAL SAFETY DAY/WEEK IN INDIA 2023
  • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators

Recent Posts

  • Not Just Another ‘Hazard’
  • Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety
  • Free Download – Real Risk – New Book by Dr Robert Long
  • Proving Safety
  • ISO 45003 and What it Cannot Do
  • Harming People in the Name of Good
  • An Advanced Understanding of Culture – A Video
  • Risk and Safety Maturity
  • The KISS of Death in Safety
  • SPoR, Metanoia and a Podcast on Change with Nippin Anand
  • Behavioural Safety is NOT a Foundation for Tackling Psychosocial and Mental Health
  • The Worst Approach to Psychosocial Problems is an Attitude of ‘Fixing’
  • SPoR Comes to Vienna June 2023
  • The Language of ‘Hazards’ and Psychosocial, Mental Health
  • Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • The Visionary Imagination – Louisa Lawson
  • Heaven ‘n Hell and the Safety Religion
  • Confirmity in Conformity
  • Numerology and Psychic Numbing
  • Thinking of Mortality
  • Safety is the Wrong Anchor
  • Foresight Blindness, Hindsight Bias and Risk
  • 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

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

Censorship and Taboos in Safety

Sexual Stereotyping Can Be Deadly

By What Method Do You Tackle Risk?

Sense-Making and Decision-Making in Risk

No Help for Mental Health in Zero

Why Would You Talk That Way?

Risk Boldly

Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick

Investigations and Heuristics

European Tour Dr Long 1-5 June 2020

Calculators, Matrices and Mumbo Jumbo Risk Assessment

And the Enemy of Safety is? … Humans!

Dumbs for Safety

The Disembodied Human and Persons in Safety

What Safety and Risk Could Learn From Patch Adams

Could Understanding Grey Be The Silver Bullet

What are Your Secret Messages in Safety?

Safety as a Patriarchal Activity

Safety Aphorisms and Platitudes

Why are we Afraid?

Even Safety Is Fallible

Safety Myopia

Data Cannot Drive Vision

Human Dymensions Newsletter–Feb 14

Who is the Enemy and What War is Safety Fighting?

Sitting Safely at the Table

Zero Discourse and Perfectionism

I Just Want Clear Answers

Fear of Being-in-the-World

The Curse of Cognitivism

Censorship in Safety

An Engineering Dreamworld

Until Nothing Changes in Safety

Vision Can’t Come from Safety Compliance

Safety Isn’t Sexy, and it Shouldn’t Be!

C. G. Jung on Risk and Safety

Behaviourist Neuroscience as Safety

Hind-sight, Risk Savvy and the Unexpected

The Immediacy of Zero

And the Dirty Word is – Fallibility!

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 7,500 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