Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
more social team approach into the field of intrapersonal psychology.
If we are able to influence the mind of a person at the moment she
decides what to do and how to act, it will be possible to generate safer
work behavior. We are in need of new areas of expertise that can teach
us more about human behavior in general and the process of estimat-
ing risks in particular.
Fortunately, recent developments in neurobiology and neuropsy-
chology are deepening our insights into how people make decisions
and what kind of brain processes are involved. One of the major pro-
blems is that decision processes in the brain are far from conscious and
rational. In these processes, different sources of
are
used, from very logical analyses to very intuitive emotional estima-
tions. The main challenge is to influence the internal processes of
weighing risks. The holy grail of safety management can be found by
understanding the essence of human behavior, the principles by which
we perceive our environment, digest the information, and come to
action. The challenge of this topic is to transfer all the recent knowl-
edge in this field into understanding safe behavior and into ways of
influencing these processes.
information
1.5 SUMMARY
Safety management started as an economic necessity and as a result of
changing values. During the last 60 years, the developments in this
professional area can be described as a combination of revolution and
evolution. Each revolution in approach is accompanied by a paradigm
shift, a new perspective. Stepwise ideas have changed from the notion
that work should be possible without casualties, via the notion that
safety can only be accomplished if employees stick to certain rules and
contribute to safety as a result of personal responsibility, to the notion
that a collective approach can make it possible that everybody leaves
work in the same health in which they started. Each step contributes
to an integral safety approach and enlarges the focus. Safety manage-
ment has changed from a pure technical approach to a multidisciplin-
ary one, integrating engineering with labor and personal psychology.
The final step is to understand human safety behavior and to influence
that from all possible perspectives. The recent developments in neuro-
psychology can attribute to this understanding.
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