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Are accidents more likely in a low, moderate or high hazard environment? In a moderately hazardous environment, according to this upcoming study.

Over four protocols they explored the protective behaviours people adopt in response to workplace hazards (what they termed ‘safety behaviour’), and how these behaviours scale in response to low, medium and high hazardousness.

They expected to find an inverted-u relationship with hazardousness and accidents, where accidents are most likely to occur in moderately hazardous environments compared to low or high hazardousness environments.

That is, in high hazard environments, people are expected to respond with a high degree of protective behaviour; hence, moderately hazardous environments may pose a greater overall risk of accidents.

Moreover, because protective behaviours, while necessary, can also be “cumbersome and inefficient” and “Because individuals must allocate time and attention across multiple competing demands (e.g., productivity and safety), it is impractical to simply maximize safety behaviors across all work situations”.

Key findings were that:

·        Accidents are more likely within moderately hazardous environments

·        “most study participants failed to fully compensate for environmental hazardousness”

·        Said differently, “most participants did not adjust safety behaviors to the degree necessary to keep the probability of an accident low and constant, particularly during the moderately hazardous trials”

·        They argue that “individuals are likely to under-allocate resources toward safety behavior within moderately hazardous environments, independent of these factors”

·        In all, “It is unreasonable to expect workers to maximize safety behaviors at all times. Doing so is inefficient and comes at the expense of productivity” and “Rather than maximising safety at all times, workers adapt to meet the demands of the situation”, but these trade-offs aren’t always successful.

Note the limitations in this study.

Authors: Beck, J.W., Nishioka, M., Scholer, A. A., & Beus, J. M. (2023). Personnel Psychology, 1–33. Advance online publication 

Study link: https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12586

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