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Human Dymensions Newsletter 2014 Quarterly Newsletter

If you are over boring safety newsletters about legislation updates, recent fines and the latest PPE flooding your inbox then here is a Safety Newsletter worth reading. You can subscribe here: http://www.humandymensions.com/mailing-list

Human Dymensions Newsletter 2014 Quarterly Newsletter This Newsletter has come out early this quarter because of a hectic program for Human Dymensions in August and September. Dr Long will be in Belgium for several weeks, New Zealand and then Austria and will not be available till October. Associates Craig Ashhurst, Gabrielle Carlton and Rob Sams are available if any work or presentations are needed urgently.

Enrolments Open and Filing Quickly for 2015 Post Graduate Program in the Social Psychology of Risk

The highly successful Post Graduate Program in the Psychology of Risk is finishing the first year with a third of students electing to graduate in 2014 with a Graduate Certificate in the Psychology of Risk. Two thirds of the students are continuing into the Post Graduate Diploma Program in 2015.

Places for enrolment are now open for 2015 with half of those places already taken by new students. Unit 1 of the Graduate Certificate Program in the Psychology of Risk commences in March 2015.
If you would like to enrol or if you require more information about the Program you can email the University Convenor: Brad.Markham@acu.edu.au or rob@humandymensions.com. An overview, testimonials and reports on the Program can be viewed here:
https://safetyrisk.net/post-graduate-studies-in-the-social-psychology-of-risk/
https://safetyrisk.net/second-student-group-social-psychology-of-risk/

If you are in Melbourne you can even come and meet the second student group on Unit 4 of the Program at ACU 6-9 October.

 

Puzzles of the Mind

One of the fascinating things about the human mind is that we know so little about it. It has only been in the last 10 years of so with advances in fRMI imaging and neuroscience that we have come to understand more of the mind, much more than the mechanics of the brain. One of the leaders in research into the mind is Susan Greenfield. Her books are most accessible and easy to read. One of my favourite authors on the mind is John Medina, his book Brain Rules is a must for people interested in risk. Medina illustrates in his book the triarchic nature of the human brain as illustrated above.

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One Brain Three Minds Program

Human Dymensions has developed the One Brain Three Minds presentation to explain how the mind works, particularly with regard to decision making about risk. As much as some researchers use binary understandings of the human mind (fast and slow), there are many religious traditions that understand the human mind in triarchic ways eg. brain, heart and gut. In reality we have many speeds in mindfulness and this is repesented in the One Brain Three Minds Tool used in training above. Human Dymensions base the One Brain Three Minds concept on the work of the triarchic tradition and a range of experts (Norrtranders, Medina, Ramachandran etc) in human consciousness (and the unconsciousness).ur description

      <p>The One Brain Three Minds Workshop explains why so much of paper-based approaches to managing risk are not successful and why organisations should improve their approaches to engaging people in mind 2 and 3 and better understand the foundations of human decision making.           <br />If you would like to have the half day or full day presentation of One Brain Three Minds in your organisation please contact: <a href="mailto:admin@humandymensions.com">admin@humandymensions.com</a></p>                  <tr>       <td width="748">&nbsp;</td>     </tr>   

Improving Inductions One of the services of Human Dymensions is enhancing, designing and improving company inductions. Rob and Craig are more than happy to speak to you about your induction and support your organisation in designing a great induction. Read here for a guide on what makes a good and poor induction.

      <p><b>https://safetyrisk.net/how-to-improve-your-safety-inductions-without-being-a-spud-head/</b></p>                  <tr>       <td width="748">&nbsp;</td>     </tr>   

The Amazing Work of Mexican Octavio Ocampo

The work of Mexican Octavio Ocampo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavio_Ocampo) serves to highlight the fluid nature of human perception. For example, one can look at Ocampo’s work ‘The Shiva Woman’ below (and many more of Ocampo’s images by a search in Google Images) and perceive more and more in time, seeing things that were initially not visible. This is because we initially rely on our rational mind (Mind 1) to analyse images and yet can’t control our perceptions. Then as we become familiar with the initial image our Mind 3 perception flips in and out and across images uncontrollably.

More of Octavio Ocampo

Search for Octavio Ocampo in Google images and you will be delighted by his work. for more (Scientific American Mind May/June p. 21ff)

Nassim Taleb For those who read Nassim Taleb (Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness and Anti-Fragility) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb) and appreciate his thinking on risk, here is a treat. He has released a draft copy of his latest book “Silent Risk’ for your perusal, enjoy. http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/textbook-kindle.pdf

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Book Four in Series on Risk to be Released in November All is going well for the release of a fourth book in the series on risk. The book is being co-written with Craig Ashhurst who is an associate of Human Dymensions. Craig is currently completing his PhD at ANU. Craig and Rob have been friends and associates for 30 years.

      <p>The new book is called <em>Following-Leading in Risk</em> and explores the nature of how people work together in organisations to tackle risk. A special newsletter will come out closer to the date to inform everyone of the launch, expected in late November. The launch will be at ACU North Sydney. The work on the Field Guide has been delayed for release in 2015.</p>                  <tr>       <td width="748">&nbsp;</td>     </tr>   

Competition – Find the Cat

Well time to find a cat again. Apologies for the last one that was so hard to find but it was there. This time I have given you a much easier one. First 5 correct answers get a signed copy of book 3 Real Risk, Human Discerning and Risk.

Risk Perception Increases in Correlation to Negative Life Experiences It has long assumed that people rationally weighed the pros and cons of a given risk and then acted in a way that maximized the benefit and minimized potential costs (Downs, 1957). The idea that people make decisions based on maximizing information is not supported by the evidence. What people really do is search for evidence for a decision but chose a moment to stop and just make a decision with the limited information available. This is called satisficing. In other words, when there is satisfactory data people make a decision and more often make decisions by intuition, heuristics or gut instinct. If humans had to wait for all available data to make a judgment, they wouldn’t be able to live or make any decision at all.

      <p>We also know that multiple other factors have been found to be associated with perceived risk, including demographic characteristics such as race and sex (Slovic, 1999), affect (Johnson &amp; Tversky, 1983; Lerner, Gonzalez, Small, &amp; Fischhoff, 2003; Slovic, 1987), perceptions of others’ beliefs regarding a hazard (Starr, 1969), and proximity, both geographic and temporal, to a catastrophic event (Fischhoff, Gonzalez, Small, &amp; Lerner, 2003).</p>          <p>Recent research by Blum, Silver and Poulin (<em>Social Cognition</em>, Vol. 32, No. 3, 2014, pp. 297–314) shows that perceived risk increases in correlation to increased negative and violent life experience. In other words, one’s own life experiences amplify one’s perception of risk, usually over estimating associated risk and underestimating disassociated risks. This is also supported by the excellent work of Pidgeon, Kasperson and Slovic (2003) The Social Amplification of Risk. The Social Amplification of Risk is Unit 7 in the Post Graduate Diploma Program. The Social Psychology of Risk understands that risk assessment is not objective but is rather attributed due to social arrangements.</p>                  <tr>       <td width="748">&nbsp;</td>     </tr>   

Fast and Frugal Decision Making On 6 August 2014 a man was trapped between a train and the platform in Perth Western Australia. So with some quick thinking and sensible consultation, the passengers all pushed the carriage and set him free. A wonderful example of a no nonsense approach to risk. To understand more on heuristics and fast a frugal decision making try Gigerenzer, G. (1999) Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2wXphZloDQ

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The Way Words are Framed Affect Risk The following summary has been copied from research by by GANG HUANGFU from Beihang University (Social Behaviour and Personality, 2014, 42(2), 279-284). ‘I investigated the relationship between framing effect and individuals’ level of tendency to take risks. The results showed that the strength of the tendency of individuals to take risks influences the occurrence of framing effect. Frame had relatively less impact on those participants whose tendency to take risks was stronger than that of other people and people in this group tended to pursue risks in both positive and negative frame conditions. Frame had a stronger impact on those participants with a weaker risk-taking tendency, and they tended to avoid risks under positive framing conditions but pursued risks under negative framing. These results explain the preference shift phenomenon, whereby a tendency to take risks under a positive framing condition becomes stronger under a negative framing condition (unidirectional framing effect), that has been found in previous studies. The results also confirmed that framing influenced participants’ reaction time, which was shorter in the positive frame condition than in the negative frame condition’.