Psychology of Safety – Theory Exam 1: Physical Safety
Lecture 1 – Introduction in the Psychology of Risks and Technology
The purpose of this lecture/review/paper is to examine what existing research can tell us about the
perception of risk associated with extreme event as well as issues that remain in need of exploration.
Article: Slovic, P. & Weber, E.U. (2002). Perception of Risk posed by extreme events, in “Risk
Management strategies in an uncertain world” Conference, Palisades, New York, April 12-13.
Risk analysis has grown substantially over the past quarter-century, focussing on issues of risk
assessment and risk management (see Figure 1). Risk assessments refers to the identification,
quantification and characterization of threats to human health and the environment whereas risk
management centers around processes of communication, mitigation and decision making. Thus,
themes in risk analysis involve incidents, events, victim support, legal issues and prosecution, risk
mitigation, risk awareness, risk communication and risk-taking behaviour.
A risk is some probability that an event, a situation, a behaviour, an activity or a process has a
particular consequence. The probability is sometimes known, but often it is not, which leads to
uncertainty. The consequences usually have a negative impact on one’s health, safety or wellbeing: a
financial loss, an injury, an illness, or death, environmental impacts. Sometimes it is your choice to be
in a risky situation, sometimes other put you in a risky spot. Some risks may go unnoticed, but other
risks may affect your life in an extreme and unwanted manner. Sometimes risk touches many
thousands of people directly, sometimes only a handful
Risk perception plays a prominent role in the decisions people make, in the sense that differences in
risk perception lie at the heart of disagreements about the best course of action between technical
experts and members of the general public, men vs. women and people from different cultures. Other
conceptualizations of ‘risk’ include:
1) Risk as a hazard: ‘which risks should we rank?’
2) Risk as probability (discussed above): ‘what is the risk of getting AIDS from an infected needle?’
3) Risk as consequence: ‘what is the risk of letting your parking meter expire’ (answer: getting
fined)
4) Risk as potential adversity or threat: ‘how great is the risk of riding a motorcycle?’
Based on the above conceptualizations, it is evident that the word ‘risk’ has so many meanings, which
often causes problems in communication. Regardless of the definition, the probabilities and
consequences of adverse events, are typically assumed to be objectively quantified by risk assessment.
1|Pagina
,According to social science analysis, risk should be seen as a concept that humans have invented to
help them understand and cope with the dangers and uncertainties in life.
Important other characteristics of risks: sometimes only you are involved, more often it involves other
people that you may not know an whose behaviour you cannot control. For example: a process
manager of a chemical plant, a truck driver on the highway transporting LPG, the butcher selling you
some beef (BSE or not), a person infected with HIV, et cetera.
Risk psychology is the systematic study of all psychological issues (both from a cognitive and a social
perspective) that are relevant to our understanding of the way people think, perceive, act upon a risk or
attribute meaning to a risk. Within this context various groups of people can be identified: younger
versus older people, employees, neighbours of industrial activities, at-risk groups, et cetera. Risk
psychology analyses 1) events, such as natural hazards, man-made hazards and fraud, 2) the coping
with events, which include the rescue and victim support, 3) risk management, which aims to develop
solutions and establish communication in risk situations.
Risk psychology is important because of the following reasons:
1) Enormous growth of attention for risk (we live in a risk society)
2) Risk (psychology) has been institutionalized (had become big business; relevant to both the
natural and the social scientist)
3) Risks are not accepted anymore (by the public)
4) Risk plays a role in many decisions made in society today (design a product for 1 mill, spend 4
mills to get public acceptance
5) Deal with concerns about risk in society
6) Help people to take right decisions about risks
Lecture 2 – Risk perception
Article: Slovic, P. & Weber, E.U. (2002). Perception of Risk posed by extreme events, in “Risk
Management strategies in an uncertain world” Conference, Palisades, New York, April 12-13.
Three approaches about risk perception are distinguished, namely: the axiomatic measurement
paradigm, the socio-cultural paradigm and the psychometric paradigm. The axiomatic measurement
paradigm explains the way in which people subjectively transform objective information, i.e. possible
consequences of risky choice options such as mortality rates or financial losses and their likelihood of
occurrence, in ways that reflect the impact that these events have on their lives.
Secondly, studies within the socio-cultural paradigm have examined the effect of group- and culture-
level variables on risk perception. Thirdly, studies within the psychometric paradigm have identifies
people’s emotional reactions to risky situation that affect judgements of the riskiness of physical,
environmental, and material risks in ways that go beyond their objective consequences. Especially this
paradigm is important to analyse in more detail.
The psychometric paradigm uses psychophysical scaling and multivariate analysis techniques to
produce quantitative representations of risk attitudes and perceptions. This means that people make
quantitative judgements about the current and desired riskiness of diverse hazards and the desire level
of regulation of each. These judgements are subsequently related to judgements about other properties,
such as:
1) The hazard’s status on characteristics that have been hypothesized to account for risk perceptions
and attitudes (for example, voluntariness, dread, knowledge, controllability)
2) The benefits that each hazard provides to society
3) The number of deaths caused by the hazard in an average year
4) The number of deaths caused by the hazard in a disastrous year
5) The seriousness of each death from a particular hazard relative to a death due to other causes
2|Pagina
,Theories of risk perception have shown that when experts judge risk, their responses correlate highly
with technical estimates of annual fatalities. This means that experts use scientific, statistical or
actuarial information to assess risks. Lay people can assess annual fatalities if they are asked to, but
their judgements of risk are related more to other hazard characteristics (for example, catastrophic
potential threat to future generations) and, as a result, tend to differ from their own (and experts)
estimates of annual fatalities.
Most conflicts between laypeople and experts regarding the acceptability of risks are the result of
different definitions of the concept of risk and the different assessments of the magnitude of its
riskiness rather than differences in opinions about acceptable levels of risk. In extension of this, it can
be observed that people (the general public) reacted fearful or worried about risks that experts would
not worry about, such as environmental issues, health issues, technology related issues. Vice versa,
experts worried about risks people (the general public) are not particularly worried about, e.g. smoking
and alcohol consumption
Psychometric studies have given insight into the unique patterns of qualities that appears to be related
to its perceived risk. For example, dread risk is a quality that can be defined as a perceived lack of
control, dread, catastrophic potential, fatal consequences and the inequitable distribution of risks and
benefits. Another example is unknown risk, which refers to hazards that are judged to be unobservable,
new (to science), and delayed in their manifestation of harm. Another factor reflects the number of
people exposed to the risk, which is also expressed as the magnitude of a risk. These three qualities
(dread, unknown, and magnitude) make up the three subjective determinants of risk perceptions
according to the psychometric paradigm.
The most important factor is the dread risk. The dreaded factor refers to the catastrophic
consequences, fatal consequences, high risk to future generations, involuntariness, uncontrollability,
inequitable, and not easily reduces risks. The higher a hazard’s score on this factor, the higher its
perceived risk, the more people want to see its current risks reduced, and the more they want to see
strict regulation employed to achieve the desired reduction in risk. The dread risk and unknown risk
taken together can be expressed in a score, which gives an impression of the ‘total’ risk score.
In the figure below, the process named the social amplification of risk is illustrated, which plays a key
role in the perceptions of risk and the location of hazard events within the factor space. Social
amplification is triggered by the occurrence of an adverse event, which could be a major or minor
accident, a discovery of pollution, an outbreak of disease, an incident of sabotage, and so on that falls
into the either risk-unknown or risk-previously-ignored category and has potential consequences for a
wide range of people. Examples of events resulting in extreme higher-order impacts include the
chemical manufacturing accident at Bhopal, India, the disastrous launch of the space shuttle
Challenger, the nuclear reactor accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the adverse effect of the
drug Thalidomide, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the adulteration of Tylenol capsules with cyanide, and
the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the deaths of several individuals from anthrax. An
important aspect of social amplification is that the direct impacts need not be too large to trigger major
3|Pagina
, indirect impacts. Multiple mechanisms are partly responsible to the social amplification of risk. One of
those mechanisms include the clues or signals regarding the magnitude of the risk and the adequacy of
the risk-management process.
Risk as feelings. It is suggested that there exist two fundamentally different ways in which humans
process information about the world when they make judgements or arrive at decisions. One of these
processes is evolutionary, older, fast, mostly automatic and not very accessible to conscious awareness
and control (=experiential system). The other processing system works by algorithms and rules,
including those specified by normative models of judgment and decision making, and this system does
require awareness and conscious control (=rational system). These systems often work parallel and
result in identical judgments and decisions.
Experiential thinking and/or learning is intuitive, automatic and fast. It relies on images and
associations, linked by experience to emotions and affect. This leads to quick affective reactions to
risk objects in terms of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. According to research, risk perceptions are influenced by
association- and affect- driven processes as much or more than by rule- and reason-based processes.
Article: Slovic, P., Finucane, M.L. et al. (2004). Risk as analysis and risk as feelings: Some thoughts
about affect, reason, risk, and rationality. Risk Analysis, 24 (2), 311-322. The purpose of this article is
to address the two fundamental ways of risk comprehension, namely the analytic system versus the
experiental system.
In this modern age, risk is confronted and dealt with in three ways, 1) risk as feelings, which refers to
our fast, instinctive and intuitive reactions to danger. 2) risk analysis, which brings logic, reason and
scientific deliberation to hazard management. And 3) risk as politics. Especially the risk as feelings
aspect will be explained in more detail.
An important aspect of risk as feelings is the affect of an individual. Affect refers to the specific quality
of ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ experienced as a feeling state (with or without consciousness) and
demarcating a positive or negative quality of a stimulus. Affective responses occur rapidly and
automatically. Relying on affective feelings and/or responses can therefore be characterized as the
affect heuristic.
The two modes of thinking are also known as the dual-process theories of thinking, knowing and
information procession. In the table below, these modes of thought and their characteristics are
illustrated in more detail. In summary, although analysis is certain important in some decision-making
circumstances, reliance on affect and emotion is quicker, easier, and a more efficient way to navigate
in complex, uncertain and sometimes dangerous world.
In extension of this, research performed by Damasio has shown that thought is made largely of
images, constructed to include perceptual and symbolic representations. A lifetime of learning leads
these images to be ‘marked’ by positive and/or negative feelings linked directly or indirectly to
somatic or bodily states.
4|Pagina