Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
to these regulations. The Brain Based Safety approach for enhancing
organizational safety has a basic assumption: Safety can only be real-
ized when it is endemic to our total system and integrated in every
brain function. It belongs to the domain of intrinsic motivation. What
will happen if an organization starts to motivate people or managers
on issues that belong to the intrinsic domain via extrinsic motivators
like financial bonuses to attain higher levels of safety behavior? Will
intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
“
”
match up
with each other? Will
they strengthen or destroy each other?
Tangible rewards
...
tend to
forestall self regulation. In other words, reward contingencies undermine
people
Deci, Koestner, & Ryan (1999) state,
“
”
Mellström and Johannesson (2008) showed that a financial reward for
becoming a blood donor decreased significantly the readiness to become
such a donor. Both theories rely on a phenomenon called
'
s taking responsibility for motivatingorregulatingthemselves.
.
Essential to this theory is the attribution of meaning to behavior. As soon
as one receives an external incentive to act safely, safety enters a different
normative domain. Safety no longer finds its origin in a deeply felt respon-
sibility for one
“
crowding out
”
well-being. It becomes an appreciated
behavior carried out to please somebody. Crowding out states that extrin-
sic motivators transform behavior that is founded in a sense of responsibil-
ity or community into a behavior that is carried out for personal interest.
A comparable study on priming with money shows similar results. If
people are primed with concepts of money (for example, an expensive
bag, a silver pen, or a screensaver with images of money), they slip into a
self-supporting mode and forget others (Vohs, Mead, & Goode, 2008).
They stop caring about the well-being of others and also forget to seek
help for their own problems. Suddenly, tasks become a solitary pursuit.
Tosummarize,abonussystemwillworkif an organization is still improv-
ing safety at a level of rules and regulations; it will have an opposite effect
if the focus is on enhancing deeply held beliefs of safety behavior.
'
sownandothers
'
Processes driven by extrinsic motivation can be reinforced by extrinsic
rewards like bonuses. Processes driven by intrinsic motivation can only
be reinforced by creating sense.
Previously, we have seen that safety is heavily reliant on social contact
within an organization. Employees support and correct each other in
order to create a safe environment. As soon as the introduction of money
