• 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 / Social Psychology of Risk / The Sully Effect

The Sully Effect

May 6, 2023 by Dr Rob Long 2 Comments

Originally posted on December 2, 2016 @ 4:31 PM

The Sully Effect

imageI wrote recently about the Bradbury Effect that is, the delusion that there is no chance, luck, randomness and fundamental attribution error. A critical part of the Bradbury effect is the attribution of value to denial in the light of hindsight bias. It’s amazing how smart we become as humans when we are not in ‘the moment’. Another example of this is The Sully Effect.

The story of Sully is about the Miracle on the Hudson . For those who have watched the movie it is about how engineers and bureaucrats (after the event) seek to find cause and rational reasons for the decisions of the Captain Chesley Sullenberger, Sully. The movie effectively demonises the enquiry and the NTSB investigators (http://qz.com/778011/sully-ntsb-investigators-are-not-happy-about-being-made-the-villains-in-clint-eastwoods-film-starring-tom-hanks-as-chesley-sully-sullenberger/).

The Sully Effect demonstrates the power of heuristics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic) and implicit knowledge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge) in decision making. This is how we all make decisions most of the time. The idea that decision making is both rational and like a checklist is a nonsense in light of the evidence. Humans simply couldn’t live if every decision was about rationality (see further One Brain Three Minds https://vimeo.com/106770292) This doesn’t mean that human decisions are irrational but rather, most of our decisions are arational (non-rational). That is, we decide using ‘fast and frugal’ processes (neither rational or irrational) built on experience such as with heuristics and implicit knowledge (the best to read further on this is Gerd Giggerenzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerd_Gigerenzer ). In the pace of this world (Moore-Ede, M., 1993 The Twenty-Four Hour Society) there are countless examples of how major disasters have been averted by heuristics thinking and fast and frugal (collective) decision making (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seDPVqQKORE ).

Implicit or tacit knowledge (through heuristics) is not really about knowing by feeling but rather a form of knowing that resides in the unconscious and surfaces when millisecond decision-making is required. This is what the story of Sully is about.

Heuristics and implicit knowledge operate from the unconscious. When we say we made a decision ‘without thinking’ that is exactly right. Most of the time this form of unconscious decision making keeps us perfectly safe. Some also know this as auto-pilot (automaticity – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaticity) What we really mean is, we made a decision without rationally thinking. We do this individually and collectively. It is in the collective unconscious that cultures and organisations collectively support group heuristics and tacit knowledge. This is what happened in the cockpit with Sully and crew.

What the Sully Effect also highlights is the post-event (rational) intelligence of those who have the luxury of hindsight and time. I have seen this time and time again in the various crises I have been involved in (eg. Beaconsfield, Canberra Bushfires). The idea that people collectively make unconscious decisions is really not the domain of engineers, safety people and bureaucrats and this surfaces always in post event investigations. (The SEEK Program (next available in Melbourne in June 2017 http://cllr.com.au/product/seek-the-social-psyvhology-of-event-investigations-unit-2/) tackles such problems in investigations and provides new tools in understanding how decisions are really made.)

It is in post-investigation that all the lovers of measurement surface, yet in the moment of a crisis, there is no time to measure, reflect or ponder. Most safety investigations work under this crazy assumption that decision-making is like using a checklist – individual and rational, totally ignoring the social-psychological realities of decision making. Then when someone like Sully succeeds by such decision making they are lauded as a hero, but if anything goes wrong they get crucified, and so by rational standards they are labelled ‘an idiot’.

Of course there is no education of this in any orthodox safety curriculum (https://www.safetyrisk.net/isnt-it-time-we-reformed-the-whs-curriculum/). WHS is still plagued by pyramids, swiss cheese and curves. The WHS curriculum keeps the safety non-profession locked into a rationalist/reductionist time warp (read Dekker Safety Differently), so removed from the reality of decision making that it remains irrelevant to the rest of the workplace. Safety still thinks ‘safety is a choice you make’, that ‘all injury is avoidable’, that dumb-down is good and speaks in perfectionist language (zero).

If you want to learn more about human judgment and decision-making and the collective unconscious in cultural decision making, then you might want to join in on the Introduction to the Social Psychology of Risk workshops being undertaken in January, February and March 2017 (Europe, Sydney and Adelaide).

Linz Austria Workshop 17,18 January 2017

http://cllr.com.au/product/international-workshop-introduction-social-psychology-risk/

Sydney Workshop 8,9,10 February 2017

http://cllr.com.au/product/an-introduction-to-the-social-psychology-of-risk-unit-1/

Adelaide Workshop 8,9,10 March 2017

Flyer to be available soon, for more information:

Contact admin@cllr.com.au

  • 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: Social Psychology of Risk Tagged With: arational, unconscious

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
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • Ratio Delusions and Heinrich’s Hoax
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • Safety Acronyms

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

It’s not in the KPI or LTI but the MRI

The Challenge of the Consciousness Taboo

Questioning Skills and Investigations

Keep Discovering

The Unconscious and the Soap Dispenser

Human Dymensions Newsletter–Feb 14

Making the World fit the Safety Worldview

The Binary Barnacle

Subjecting and Objecting About Risk

Confirmity in Conformity

Humanising Workplace Health and Safety Management

Safety as Policing

Social Sensemaking – Free eBook

Risk and Safety as a Social Psychological Problem

New Year Safety Trade-Offs and By-Products

The Social Psychology of Risk Event Exploration (Investigation) Knowledge

The New Leadership – Risk and Safety

The Learning (and unlearning) that Revealed my Vocation

A Culture of Care (and sackings…)

And the Enemy of Safety is? … Humans!

The Foundations of Safety

Happy New Year and the ‘Good Life’ Paradox

Freedom in Necessity

Right and Wrong in Safety

Safety as a Worldview

SPoR and Myth

Safety is the Wrong Anchor

The Quantitative and Qualitative Divide in Safety

Semiotics and the Unconscious Messages We Send

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

It Works! A New Approach to Risk and Safety

Free Online Module: Introduction to The Social Psychology of Risk

Who Said We Don’t Need Systems?

Social Psychology of Risk – Body of Knowledge

What is SPoR?

Psycho-social workplace issues

Safety Engagement with Workspace, Headspace and Groupspace

Risk and Safety Matrices and the Psychology of Colour

The Shock of Homeostasis

Dumbs for 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 7,521 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