Behavioral Perspectives on Variability in Human Behavior as Part of Process Safety

ABSTRACT

Process safety involves worker decisions at various points in an extended process, and much remains unknown regarding sources of variability in worker behavior at these decision points. This paper seeks to explain why some workers may be deviating from sanctioned policies and procedures. Risky choice is analyzed through discussion of positive and negative reinforcement, habituation in terms of respondent and operant behavior, risk discounting, and consequence dimensions that include a review of prospect theory, heuristics, and behavioral decision theory. Recommendations are made for improving our understanding of sources of variability in process safety by conducting systematic research on the perspectives reviewed.

KEYWORDS:

• choice
• consequences
• decision making
• habituation
• risk discounting

Notes

¹ We base our analyses on the definition of Blakely and Schlinger (1987) that rules are “function-altering contingency-specifying stimuli” (p. 183), which is further summarized by Agnew and Redmon (1993) who explain that “rules influence behavior by changing the function of other stimuli; and it is those other stimuli, whose function has been altered, that directly control behavior” (p. 68).

² It was questioned if this would be extinction if a fire was never present, but we argue that a worker likely received reinforcement for responding appropriately in a training situation or drill either in that work environment, or a similar context.

³ According to Oxford dictionary, a Choice (1889) is “The act of choosing; preferential determination between things proposed,” and a Decision (2015) is “The action, fact, or process of arriving at a conclusion regarding a matter under consideration.”

⁴ The language of prospect theory is based in cognitive science constructs. In the following section, we use terms borrowed from prospect theory, but are fully aware of their mentalistic implications. We believe this line of research is relevant to behavioral safety, as it involves carefully and parametrically manipulated response and consequence dimensions. The methodology and results can hence and be easily reconciled with behavioral explanations of behavior.

⁵ Participants in this study were aware of the probabilities and consequences of their decision making prior to making the decision and they did not encounter feedback to shape their decisions since it was a one-opportunity decision; this is common in description-based decision research.