The Human Factor in Occupational Safety

The problem of the human factor, in the context of ideas about threats to the safety of the person and the environment that determine human behavior and the character of his interpersonal relations, became a subject of study in the theory of catastrophes and conflict situations.

By the 1930s, Russian and foreign psychologists, when examining the causes of injuries and accident rates, began to take into account not only unfavorable personality qualities but also other factors: occupational fatigue, monotony, stress, the level of staff competence, the characteristics of workers' motivation, and the psychological climate in the organization. The American psychologist S. Shellow and his associates carried out a clinical study of accidents at a streetcar station in Milwaukee (USA). The following causes of accidents were found: 37% of employees were incapable of the work; 28% had an improper attitude toward the work; 24% displayed harmful habits; 18% were deficient personalities (probably psychological incapacity); 13% showed a lack of experience; 9% had slow learning; 8% had an unsuitable state of health.

Modern statistics show that in 70—90% of cases the cause of accident and injury rates is the human factor, which is due to the following:

• • a low level of professional training in safety matters;
• • insufficient upbringing;
• • a weak commitment on the part of the specialist to observing safety;
• • admission to hazardous types of work of persons with an elevated risk of injury;
• • people being in a state of fatigue or other psychological states that reduce the reliability and safety of a specialist's work.

All this led to the development of a policy in the field of accident prevention, providing for the selection of personnel with allowance for individual behavior, as well as the design of equipment that is safer from the standpoint of ergonomics .

Examining the causes of the growth in injuries in connection with the human factor, one can conclude that the development of technology outpaces psychological measures for protection against its dangerous and harmful effects. Diagram 3 presents the "sequential model of accident occurrence" proposed by the English mathematician and economist D. Ramsey. This model assumes that there is a series of characteristic personal properties capable of influencing the probability of an accident. Let us note that at each stage in the development of an injury-prone situation, its course and outcome are determined by the psychophysiological characteristics of the performer, which are largely common to injury-prone occupations.

According to the scheme presented, the first stage is the perception of danger. There are not many jobs that require sensory perception above the average level, and it usually ensures efficiency rather than safety in the work, as, for example, with inspectors. However, there are a small number of jobs where high sensory sensitivity serves to recognize dangerous signals. Thus, for example, miners with high and low levels of occupational safety differ substantially in the level of this characteristic. The perception of danger is not related to sensory characteristics alone. Attention properties play a significant role here, which, according to research by I. P. Bondarev, M. N. Isaeva, O. V. Malikova, and others, are criterial in the selection of workers in 60—80% of all injury-prone occupations.

In the 1960s—1990s, attempts were made at developments in the field of industrial psychology, in particular "Features of Working with Subordinates at Chemical Fuel Processing Plants" . Special studies in our country and abroad have shown that 60—90% of injuries in industry and transport occur in connection with delayed or erroneous human actions. A number of technogenic disasters that swept across Russia at the end of the twentieth century confronted the state with the task of ensuring the safety of the technogenic environment at the legislative level.

On December 15, 2002, the State Duma adopted the federal law "On Technical Regulation," which pointed to the need to "carry out a comprehensive substantiation of the role of the hu-

Diagram 3. Stepwise model of the occurrence of an unfortunate

accident due to the human factor as one of the main sources of technogenic threats and as one of the basic barriers in the development of catastrophic situations at all stages of the formation and implementation of scientific and technical policy in the field of ensuring the safety of the technogenic sphere."

In 2003, the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation launched the program "Safe Educational Institution," which focused attention on fire safety. However, ensuring safety in general education institutions depends 80% on the corresponding knowledge and skills of students, as well as staff, and only 20% on the technical condition of the building. At the All-Russian Conference "Education and Safety: Problems, Concepts, Reality," held in Moscow in April 2005, it was noted that over the past decade the risks for students at educational institutions could be ranked as follows:

• • injuries;
• • the growth of cardiovascular disease;
• • deterioration of vision and of the musculoskeletal system;
• • violence within the walls of the institution;
• • the use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco;
• • tragic incidents (fires, destruction due to wear of premises, floods, terrorist acts, etc.) .

In a rapidly changing, globalizing world, new threats to humanity are approaching, and the main problems are for the most part created by human beings themselves. Consequently, it becomes obvious that there is a need to cultivate a person's responsibility for his actions and to form a culture of safety, which includes: first, knowledge of the surrounding world and the characteristics of hazards; second, knowledge of oneself and one's own features; and third, the formation of qualities inherent in a personality of the safe type. World practice shows that a huge reserve (up to 80%) for the prevention of injuries and accidents lies in developing, among workers, the ability to foresee the emergence of dangerous situations in the workplace and safe patterns of thinking, action, views, and psychological attitudes.

Conclusions

• • Human labor activity is characterized by its purpose, object, content, means, and conditions of work. The purpose of labor activity is its product. The object of labor consists of the material or intellectual objects or relations with which the given activity is connected.
• • The problem of the influence of a person's individual qualities on occupational safety arose in research of various directions: in connection with the tasks of professional selection, in the process of studying accident reports, and in diagnosing workers' predisposition to hazards.
• • A predisposition to accidents should be regarded not merely as a function of a worker's individual psychological qualities, but also as the result of the combination of these qualities with particular production conditions.
• • K. Marbe, in the propositions of his theory, argued that certain people are born with a natural predisposition to accidents, which will inevitably manifest itself whatever they do in the future. His studies focused attention on the "personal factor" in the accident.
• • Russian psychologists hold that personal qualities develop and are formed in activity, under the direct influence of the social environment. Deficiencies in a person's individual qualities are far from manifesting themselves in all work tasks. Weaknesses in human properties, and in particular in the nervous system, manifest themselves in extreme situations.
• • When examining accidents, it is more expedient to use the concept of the "human factor," which can include the whole complex of an individual's qualities, including physiological ones, that influence the given incident, and to consider these qualities from the standpoint of their interaction with the machinery being operated.

• • The causes of the emergence of dangerous situations and injuries connected with the human factor can be arranged at the following levels: the level of the individual (innate or acquired physiological and psychological characteristics), the level of the immediate environment (working conditions, inadequate safety instruction, etc.), and the level of society (insufficient awareness of occupational risks and their consequences).
• • A decisive role in reducing occupational injuries and accidents is played by the activation of the human factor in the sphere of occupational safety. It is directed at the safety of all workers, at forming in them the skill and ability to work safely.

• Ergonomics — a field of scientific-applied research located at the intersection of engineering sciences, psychology, and the physiology of labor, in which problems of the design, evaluation, and modernization of the human—technology—environment system are developed.
• Kharlampovich G. D. Industrial Psychology. Part 2. Sverdlovsk, 1978.
• Education and Safety: Problems, Concepts, Reality: Proceedings of the All-Russian Conference. Moscow, 2005.

Questions for Discussion

• 1. Give a general characterization of human labor activity.
• 2. Why do people, who are endowed from birth with a self-preservation instinct, themselves become the cause of their own injuries?
• 3. Which theories of susceptibility to accidents are you familiar with, and what is their essence?
• 4. What are the distinctive features of the study of the problem of accidents in Western and Russian psychology?
• 5. Give examples from your own observations of people's degree of protection from, or susceptibility to, incidents.
• 6. Explain the causes of the emergence of dangerous situations and injuries connected with the human factor.