The development of a conceptual model regarding the role of social modelling in safety behaviour: an integrated literature review

Abstract

Social modelling is a process where an individual observes a model's behaviour and its consequences, leading to a modification of the observer's old behaviours or the acquisition of new behaviours. Even though diverse fields, including transportation and aviation, have reliably found significant results pertaining to the influences of social modelling on behavioural outcomes, there is a lack of research pertaining to social modelling's influences specifically on safety behaviour. This review details the safety issues related to the mechanisms, influences and effects of social modelling as a way to examine the potential that social modelling has in affecting employees’ safety behaviour. The collected research materials aided in the construction of a preliminary conceptual model regarding the effects of social modelling on safety behaviour. Overall, the review provides safety and organisational researchers with information about a gap in the safety literature and a model that can lead to future research to fill that gap.

Keywords:

• social modelling
• social learning
• safety
• ergonomics
• training

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Drs Marvin Dainoff and William Horrey of Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety (LMRIS) for their review and comments. We also thank the American Society for Safety Engineers (ASSE) and LMRIS for the fellowship awarded to the first author used to fund this project.