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This explored how a sense of invulnerability/indestructibility in the face of physical hazards affects young workers’ reactions to workplace hazards, particularly in the case of speaking up (safety voice).

Providing background:

·        Based on some data, the younger demographic (e.g. 15-24) are considerably more likely to experience a work-related injury than older workers. Younger males up to 4 times more likely

·        Other data highlighted many younger workers are “waiting for safety” or choosing not to voice their concerns about safety (mostly when physical hazards appear low and work injuries are not severe)

·        Young workers may comply with requests from managers to perform tasks they perceive as hazardous

·        Data from other fields explored subjective invulnerability – a perception that illness, death or injury will happen to others but not to them

·        Invulnerability is different to risk perception although may go hand in hand. Moreover, some young workers may even fail to recognise that a risk judgement is required and feel that cues about physical risks are directed at others but not them

·        Safety voice involves speaking out and challenging the status quo with intentions to improve safety

·        Previous data found that young workers who had ideas to improve safety and spoke up about it to supervisors reported fewer work injuries months later

·        Safety voice can be of different types, like promotive, preventative, prohibitive and hostile safety voice

Results

Key findings included:

·        Against expectations, young workers who feel *more* invulnerable to danger are more likely to speak up about safety when experiencing fear of injury

·        That is, rather than subjective invulnerability silencing safety voice as they predicted, this data suggests that subjective invulnerability may “serve to accelerate how fear of injury motivates safety voice” (p1)

·        Subjective invulnerability in this study played no role in the extent to which perceptions of physical hazards generated fear of injury and young workers high in subjective invulnerability register threats to physical safety at the same level as young workers low in invulnerability

How fear of injury translated into safety voice intentions was contingent on subjective invulnerability however. Namely, young workers high in subjective invulnerability exhibited a stronger positive association between fear of injury and safety voice intentions compared to those perceiving themselves as more vulnerable.

Said differently, those who felt vulnerable to injuries showed little signs of voicing safety concerns, whereas those with high invulnerability openly voiced their concerns.

In explaining this apparently contradictory finding, the authors suggest that a “felt imperviousness to physical danger—is a source of personal power” (p7).

Subjective invulnerability “emboldens young workers to speak up when the threat of injury looms” (p7).

Discussing the findings, they note that invulnerability among young workers may be often misunderstood and used as a way for employers to avoid responsibility for creating safer workplaces. Other data in construction found 65% of managers attributed accidents to young workers’ carelessness, and 58% to them not paying attention in the belief that young workers perceived themselves to be invulnerable to harm.

These findings, in contrast, suggest that fear of injury is associated with the intention to speak up about safety concerns when young workers feel invulnerable to harm.

A number of limitations were present due to the study designs.

Authors: Turner, N., Deng, C., Granger, S., & Dueck, P. M. (2023). Journal of Safety Research.

Study link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2023.01.012

Link to the LinkedIn article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-does-subjective-invulnerability-impact-young-voice-ben-hutchinson