Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
activity with many fatal accidents, we can no longer deny the fact that
our nonconscious system takes care for most our safety.
The nonconscious takes care of all standard or previously experienced
risks. It will either try to avoid them or use a safety margin to develop
alternative behaviors to compensate for threatening effects. As long as we
are dealing with risks included in our usual repertoire, we won
t notice
them. If the conscious system is active, for example, in defining the best
route to a certain place, the nonconscious can give input in the decision-
making process. We call this input
'
and define the process as
intuition: knowing without knowing how we know. Unfortunately, there
are a lot of biases in the nonconscious system but these can fortunately be
influenced by our conscious system, at least as far as we are aware of
these biases. We will discuss some of them here, especially our loss aver-
sion and our ambivalence to deal with pain. In Chapter 4, we discussed
the operational learning system that shapes behavior according to the
feedback it receives. Here, we will show that the feedback system has an
unfortunate influence on our safety behavior.
“
hunch,
”
5.1 WHY SAFETY ALWAYS NEEDS EFFORT: UNBALANCES IN
THE FEEDBACK SYSTEM OF SAFETY BEHAVIOR
The economic laws of benefits and costs are applicable to behavior.
The principle is simple: If the perceived benefits are higher than the
perceived costs, behavior will strengthen, and if the costs are higher,
behavior will decrease and eventually stop. Unfortunately, there are
two major unbalances in this economic principle, which creates a vari-
ety of reactions between people and usually decreases the tendency to
express safe behavior in a modern environment. These two are:
1. Different timing of costs and rewards; costs have to be paid in
advance, rewards come later
2. Differences in the visibility of consequences; costs are more visible
than rewards
Safety costs are up front; benefits will ensue later.
5.1.1 Unbalance 1: Different Timing of Costs and Rewards
The first unbalance is related to the moment of occurrence of the con-
sequences. Safety costs are up front; benefits will ensue later. All safety
