Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Relevant in this evaluation are expectations and needs of an observ-
ing person. If one has an urgent need for social inclusion, he will spend
more effort to stay connected with his team members and will perceive
connection as more valuable. The balance between costs and benefits
will be perceived as more positive compared to a person who prefers sol-
itary actions. If we transfer this principle to safety, the more safety is
seen as important or essential, the less the costs for safety are perceived
as a burden and the easier it will be to reach a positive economic balance
for safety behavior. Deeply held attitudes function as a benchmark for
evaluating costs and benefits. When three people each have a different
acceptance level of safety investment for a certain task, each of them
will experience the actual investment differently. To person A, who has
a low acceptance level, all the safety investments will be experienced as
a burden. Person C will experience the safety investments as easy,
because she expected more investments than needed.
Our personal standards, our anchors, have a strong influence on the per-
ceived costs of safety. They can, however, be influenced.
So if we can influence the level of expected and accepted invest-
ments in safety, we can also influence the perceived balance between
costs and rewards and the willingness to act completely safe.
Managing this level is one of the critical success factors of safety man-
agement. Kahneman (2011) introduces the concept of anchors as a
point of reference concerning how much investment is appropriate for
reaching a certain safety level. If we can establish high anchors (such
as person C), the actual costs will be perceived as low. If it is commu-
nicated that the safety procedure will take about 15 minutes and the
actual procedure takes only 10 minutes, the procedure will be per-
ceived as quick. If the procedure was said to take only 5 minutes in a
previous communication, the safety procedure will be perceived as
long and costly. In the figure, the length of the green column can be
regarded as an anchor. Safety anchors can be seen as part of the safety
culture. We will discuss this in more detail in Chapter 11.
Case 1
If all the participants had embraced the value that no task can be
started without first checking the written assignment, there would be
