There is no doubt that simplistic back and white binary thinking and methods are attractive. Who wants complex or ‘wicked’ when a simple delusion will do. All you have to do is place such a worldview over reality and make it fit your assumptions and then ensure you never talk about any of the realities that don’ fit the mold.
Whenever you read Behaviourist material it is rarely about what is stated that matters. What really matters is its silences. Look at any Behaviourist discourse for what is never defined or discussed. Step over the promos, marketing and spin and see what is really being said (or not) ethically, politically and philosophically about persons. Indeed, see if there is any discussion of ‘ethics’ or ‘persons’ at all.
Behaviourism is an idea that started with Skinner, Pavlov, Thorndike and Watson that become popular from the 1930s. Behaviourism is not just a psychology but a philosophy/ideology about the nature of humans. The fundamental assumptions of Behaviourism are based on simplistic principles of ‘law and effect’, inputs and outputs, mechanistic thinking, reductionism and naïve objectivism.
In the risk and safety industry Behaviourism is packaged a Behaviour Based Safety (BBS). BBS emerged out of the imagination of Herbert Heinrich in an era when Behaviourism made sense. Of course, the nonsense of Heinrich and the BBS tradition is not supported by evidence.
BBS is essentially a desired philosophy not an evidence based science. Unfortunately, the safety industry has not moved on and is still lumbered with the Heinrich hoodoo (https://safetyrisk.net/the-heinrich-hoodoo/ ; https://safetyrisk.net/the-great-heinrich-hoax/ ). Behaviourism is a curse (https://safetyrisk.net/the-curse-of-behaviourism/ ).
Since the 1930s, through a host of research in Neuroscience, Neurocognition and Neuropsychology we know that the Behaviourist lens on humans is simply wrong.
Some of the most glaring problems with Behaviourism (and BBS) is complete error about: motivation, the psychology of goals, the psychology of perception, the nature of persons, ignorance of human decision making, ignorance on human feelings and emotions, a disregard for ethics, naivety about politics, ignorance on culture, ignorance on consciousness and Socialitie. A reasonable list of problems.
You only have to read anything by Cooper to see silence on these things listed above. Indeed, just read the book Improving Safety Culture to find out about simplistic notions of culture and simplistic ideas about leadership. First line of the book is typical: ‘The `culture’ of an organisation can be defined as `the way we do things around here’ (p.8). You don’t need to read much more of the book because it’s not about culture. None of the many critical factors in culture are discussed (https://safetyrisk.net/category/safety-culture-silences/ ).
Like every book on the market in traditional safety, including books by Dekker, Hollnagel and Conklin etc, the focus is on systems and measurement, controls and hazards. Just have a look at any of the promotions (https://www.artofwork.solutions/measurement-differently ; https://www.artofwork.solutions/enabling-controls ) and it’s the same old stuff: controls, measures, performance, behaviours and of course, controls. Forget the marketing, the linguistics is a giveaway about what philosophy underpins the traditional safety.
All of this stuff in BBS is consistent. No discussion on ethics, personhood, helping, human consciousness or Socialitie. It’s always about measuring capacities and controlling systems, and the objects (persons) in those systems.
I was presented the other day with a paper on BBS that discussed Fogg’s Behaviour Model (see Figure 1. Fogg Model) complete with discussion about ‘prompts’, ‘motivation’, ‘ability’, ‘rewards’, ‘desires’, ‘avoidance’, ‘deterrence’, ‘push and pull factors’, ‘prompts’, ‘enforcements’, negligence’, ‘controls’ and a host of gobbledygook as if humans were the sum of inputs and outputs in a system.
Figure 1. Fogg Model
Oh, look honey, another curve for you (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-curves-and-pyramids/ ). More semiotic gobbledygook to make you think everything is under control. See sweetie, you even have a mathematical equation so that your behaviours can be ‘fixed’.
If you want to be entertained just pick up anything in BBS (Behavior-based_safety_still_a_viable_strategy; https://www.behavioural-safety.com/ ) and read how it doesn’t understand desires, feelings, motivation, consciousness and emotion, it’s laughable.
BBS has no understanding at all of persons, communities or the unconscious. A wonderful recipe for brutalism, the outcome of BBS.
In BBS the favourite language is about ‘controls’ and ‘harnessing’ people. If you speak of me or about me as something to ‘harnessed’, I have no interest in what else you talk about. You can spruik all the propaganda you like, I am not an object in a system or a thing to be harnessed. Such language is behaviourist language.
This is why behaviourists love to talk about ‘boot camp’ and use other militarist language (https://safetydifferently.com/lean-green-safety-machine-part-1/ ).
In the distant past one of my boys (at 12 years of age) was caught doing something minor by the police and was assigned (by the police) to attend a ‘boot camp’. (surprise surprise, run by a fundamentalist Pentecostal). The whole camp was about brutalizing children. The damage that camp did to my child was extensive and evil. What a wonderful way to exorcise the lust for power over the weak by disguising evil as good. This is what BBS does when it talks about ‘behaviour design’. Good olde BBS, never talks about power or ethics because such is its greatest desire.
You’re perhaps not going to read Fogg’s book Tiny Habits (https://tinyhabits.com/ ), a good idea. It’s just another code book (https://safetyrisk.net/deciphering-safety-code/ ) that has no concept of the human unconscious, personhood, ethics nor any clue on what habit is.
Of course, if you want to know about ‘boot camps’, Fogg’s book is for you.
Fogg declares the purpose of his book is about ‘behaviour design’, hmmm, I wonder who is the designer? I wonder who has the power? I wonder what philosophy governs the design? I wonder what ethic drives the design? These issues are never spoken about in the discourse on ‘behaviour design’, especially in traditional safety
Indeed, those with the power in this model and any BBS model are always silent about who holds the power. Like all BBS the myth of objective perception and superior thought is never discussed. Pure Kantian philosophy, perfect for a deontological ethic (https://safetyrisk.net/the-aihs-bok-and-ethics-check-your-gut/ ).
If you read Fogg, you soon discover that habit is not defined, neither motivation nor a host of critical factors associated with ‘design’ to change behaviour. This is the same in BBS (https://www.artofwork.solutions/enabling-controls ).
Here’s a cracker for you from Fogg:
‘Welcome to Behavior Design! This is my comprehensive system for thinking clearly about human behavior and for designing simple ways to transform your life’ (p.8)
What is this transformation? What kind of person is desired as an outcome of this ‘behaviour design’ that includes no discussion of morality or ethics? What kind of politic is enacted in this design? What ideology drives this ‘design’ from a philosophy and an ethic that is never discussed? I wonder what kind of unthinking sausage is generated by this ‘program’.
Yet as in all Behaviourist discourse, there is no discussion of what a transformation process nor anything about what kind of person this transformation ‘envisions’ (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/envisioning-risk-seeing-vision-and-meaning-in-risk/ ). BTW, you will never read anywhere in BBS about the psychological nature of ‘conversion’ because that what transformation by design infers.
This is so typical of all that is hidden in BBS discourse. The elephant in the room is silence on power, ethics and personhood.
If you read Fogg, it is a perfect philosophy for eugenics (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-eugenics-and-the-engineering-of-risk-aversion/ ), the same philosophy that drove the N@z1 party . The same philosophy that drives BBS, the perfect philosophy for zero!
No wonder it’s attractive to Safety.
Dr Rob Long
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Ricardo Montero says
I feel any expert who has worked in a well design BBS process knows the evidences supporting effectivity. BBS has an history and a development. From a process designed for changing the behaviors of those observed by feedback them about the “rigth behaviour”, to a process identifying the observed behaviour as a symtom of systemic gaps (to be improved) and looking for the envolvement of all the workforce into safety practices and group construction of safety. And, of course, evidence a lot, of actual reduction of lesions and people suffering for them. BBS (specially old versions) can be critised as any methodology, but there are not any single methodology helping to reduce injures in organizations!!!. If you do not put this fact into the analysis, the critic is only interesting, but the intentions can be perceived as “confuse”, why to attack a good technique with many good results?.
Rob Long says
Ricardo, thanks for your response and happy to discuss. I appreciate your comment that there is one one single methodology, if only Safety thought this was so.
The blog is not an ‘attack’, this is not the language of the blog. The blog critically questions the philosophical, methodological assumptions and practices of behaviourism.
One of the most substantial questions of Behaviourism and BBS is how it views persons, its ethic and process. Indeed, no-one in safety in BBS even talks ethics or personhood yet BBS loves to talk about ‘right behaviour’. Who deems something ‘right behaviour’ and on what basis is it right? With next to no education in communication skills, how is this feedback interpreted?
Also interesting that so much of BBS is centered on observation with no training or skills development in perception, motivation, body language, paralinguistics, semiotics etc. Hmmm, on what basis is such observation enacted? Naive stuff.
Then we have this absurd idea that BBS observations are objective, even more absurd.
and none of this is questioned because all the myths of BBS that are believed are somehow considered objective, scientific and evidential.
So, just looking at ‘process design’ we ask, who designed the process, what are its biases, who has the power in the process? who is devalued in it? If we are going to talk about ‘process designed for changing behaviours’ then we automatically need to know something about morality and ethics. You never ear about any of this in BBS.
In contrast to BBS there are other methods that are practical, doable and more humanising. These methods are available for anyone who wants to learn and its as easy as an enquiry. What I get from most locked into Behaviourism is defensiveness and never an enquiry that seeks learning.
Rob Long says
Carsten, all historians try to describe ‘the mood of an era’ as is evident in any political or social history. For example. It makes sense to speak of the ‘Trump Era’ regardless if I am a Democrat this lives in California. Similarly, we speak of an era of disinformation, fake news and so on.
As such, a ‘mood’ or ‘force’ governs the political, ethical and social space regardless of whether I conform to it individually. Even my language about a ‘post truth era’ confirms it reality.
More so, when I observe Heinrich’s language and his image schemas, case studies and industrial focus, he is very much a commentator on his era.
Rob Long says
Those who identify as BBS, certainly identify their roots with Heinrich, including Cooper and Dekker and many others.
http://entirelysafe.com/history-of-behavioural-based-safety-bbs/#.YuOaZfFBzUI
https://weeverapps.com/safety-management/behavior-based-safety-a-brief-history/
https://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Behavior-based_safety
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/216507999904700905
https://www.safetyfabrications.co.uk/news/history-behaviour-based-safety-bbs
https://thinkinsights.net/strategy/heinrich-law/
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781351059794-4/1930s-onward-sidney-dekker
https://www.oshatrain.org/notes/2gnotes02.html
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309074889_Blame_the_worker_The_rise_of_behavioral-based_safety_programs
https://www.ohsrep.org.au/bbs_kit_-_section_1_what_is_bbs
I have certainly read much of Heinrich’s stuff, and heaps of BBS stuff and there’s no doubt Heinrich is Behaviourist.
Carsten Busch says
Okay, so you have nothing of substance that shows how we find the work of Watson, Pavlov etc in Heinrich? There’s a difference with someone starting BBS (based on Skinner) and then hatching on ideas that seem to suit the idea (which is what BBSers like Geller and Krause have done).
I am familiar with most of the above sources and none of them offers *any* evidence, these are mere opinions and/or copying each other.
Rob Long says
Carsten, more than happy to discuss offline.
You may recall the blog is framed in a discussion of Behaviourism as a ‘worldview’ (philosophy).
We know a worldview by language, discourse, linguistics, semanics, semiotics etc.
The evidence for a worldview is also ‘evident’ in argument, structure, image schemas etc.
In such evidence it is clear that Heinrich is a Reductionist but there is no clear lineage to Descartes. He is also Empiricist but there is no clear lineage to Locke.
There is ample evidence for these worldviews in Heinrich’s work and would be happy top provide evidence. eg. his language of self-evident scientific principles is Kantian.
In the same way the safety industry is Kantian and yet few in safety would have a clue what that means. Similarly, the language of so called ‘safety differently’ is strongly Behaviourist and Positivist yet few in that movement would know what these mean.
Similarly, Heinrich’s ethic is Kantian and deontological but I doubt he ever read Kant. (p. 363. 1941 he even talks about ‘Natural Law[). Heinrich even uses the language of eugenics in some of his discussion.
One thing is for sure, he’s not a Pragmaticst, Existentialist of Phenomenologist.
I think why Safety (as archetype) identifies Heinrich as Behaviourist is because so much of his language and argument is about ‘unsafe acts’ eg. p25. (1941), indeed, his language of ‘recklessness’, ‘willful disregard’ and no penalties is behaviourist language. There are many many more examples. eg. p128 (1941) where he talks of an ‘accident prone man’ who ‘disregards instruction’ and ‘man failure’. or eg. p 131 ‘but primarily they indulged willfully in practices that were commonly known to be improper and unsafe’
No wonder Safety loves Heinrich.
This is not to somehow ‘blame’ Heinrich he was simply a product of his time. There was no Neuroscience, Neurophsychology, Neurocognitivism, Phenomenology or existential research available to him. Mind you, Safety is not interested in these either, especially BBS.
In his work with Petersen and Roos this is all more amplified where the espouse ‘self evident truths’. In this work all his axioms that he identifies with (p. 21) are Behaviourist.
In all of this there is no ‘blood line’ to Skinner and there doesn’t have to be. The evidence is there in his language, discourse and semiotics.
There is of course other research to that of Heinrich and all who identify with his 1930s philosophy and speculations, it’s just that Safety shows no interest in such nor any interest in any sense of balance or Transdisciplinarity. Indeed, Safety shows no interest in philosophy, ideology, ethics, linguistics or semiotics.
Again, happy to discuss offline.
Carsten Busch says
Have some comments gone M.I.A.? I interpret the comments as a very broad description of behaviourism. Wonder whether that is helpful, but your choice.
I was still wondering about “BBS emerged out of the imagination of Herbert Heinrich”.
(For the record – there was no “work with Petersen and Roos”. At the time, Heinrich was dead for over a decade and a half… Pedersen and Roos just reworked his book, which in fact may have made it more behavioural, but I would have to re-read to make that assessment, and I really have better things to do).
Rob Long says
Identity is holistic, historical, mythical and semiotic.
Do you really accept the ‘Indiana Jones of Safety’ identity?
If so then Heinrich was certainly a Behaviourist.