Personality factors and safety attitudes predict safety behaviour and accidents in elevator workers

Abstract

Elevator accidents happen frequently and cause much loss. Personality factors and safety attitudes have been proved effective in predicting accidents in traffic and the workplace. The present study aimed to explore the effect of personality factors and safety attitudes in elevator accidents. A survey was carried out on 383 elevator installers and repairers in China, measuring personalities (conscientiousness, agreeableness and trait anxiety), safety attitudes (compliant and proactive), safety behaviours and accidents (occupational injuries). Approximately 60% of the elevator workers had been injured in the past 6 months. The structural equation model suggested that conscientiousness could predict compliant safety behaviour both directly and indirectly through safety attitude and could predict proactive safety behaviour. Agreeableness could predict compliant safety behaviour. Trait anxiety could predict occupational injuries. Recruiters should choose elevator workers who are conscientious, agreeable and of low trait anxiety. Safety trainings for elevator workers should focus on culturing their safety attitude.

Keywords:

• personality
• safety attitude
• safety behaviour
• workplace accident
• workplace safety

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank United Technologies Corporation for support during the research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Pin-Chao Liao http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6927-9204

Zhi Guo http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0295-1072

Jian Zheng http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6075-9313

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71661167006].