The Psychology of Safe Work and Its Preventive Aspect

Psychology of occupational safety. Factors and conditions of safe work. Professional selection and professional suitability of a specialist. Professionally important qualities and "anti-qualities" of workers. The concepts of "accident," "injury," "emergency," and "catastrophe." Unsafe acts of managers and workers in the labor process. Formation of safe behavior in the course of labor activity. Features of personnel management at an enterprise in connection with the need to ensure safety.

Psychology of Safe Work

The problem of reducing occupational injuries is highly relevant today. According to RIA "Novosti" data for 2007, worldwide 5,500 people die daily from accidents and occupational diseases, and 8,500 become disabled. The development of technology outpaces organizational and psychological measures aimed at protecting people from its dangerous and harmful effects. The spread of technical equipment in industry and agriculture, combined with a lack of the necessary information about safety precautions when working with it, as well as insufficient corresponding upbringing, gives rise—especially among young people—to an underestimation of the technical factors of injury. Paradoxically, but true: a modern young person may be more frightened by a horse standing nearby than by a roaring car close at hand.

The problem of coordinating man and machine was raised back in the 1930s by the Soviet psychophysiologist N. A. Bernstein. In his works he emphasized the importance of accounting for the biological factors of the human being when creating an integral, functioning human-tool system. He also pointed out the complexity of calculations and algorithmic descriptions of human activity within a designed system. Even a very small error in the coordination of man and machine can cause an accident . Today, the problems of labor activity are addressed by modern ergonomics, which has combined within itself a complex of sciences about labor. Ergonomics, in solving the problems of optimizing labor activity, also contributes to labor protection, ensuring its hygiene and safety. The psychology of occupational safety is both a branch of the psychological sciences and a field of ergonomics.

The psychology of occupational safety is a branch of psychological knowledge in the field of labor protection.

The psychology of occupational safety includes:

• • the psychology of teaching a profession and safety techniques;
• • the psychology of managing safety techniques;
• • the psychology of cultivating professional caution.

The psychology of occupational safety studies the application of psychological knowledge to ensure the safety of human activity, examining the mental processes, properties, and various forms of mental states observed in the course of labor activity.

In previous chapters we examined the causes underlying an unsafe act by a worker, as a result of which an accident or emergency ensues. The potential danger of production can, under certain conditions, turn into a real one, when a dangerous situation or emergency condition arises that requires adequate action from the worker. Finally, there are situations in which severe consequences occur not because of exposure to a hazardous factor or reckless behavior on the part of the worker, but in connection with his state. Imagine that at a workplace ideal from a safety standpoint, a worker suffers a heart attack because of strong emotional distress experienced before the start of the workday, loses consciousness, falls, and sustains a head injury.

Thus, it must be acknowledged that safe working conditions are necessary but not sufficient for safe work as a whole. Much depends on the worker himself: his qualifications, behavior, and physical and mental state.

Safe work — an activity in which safe working conditions are ensured; the worker acts expediently and safely both when performing work operations and when dangerous situations arise; and the worker's physical and mental state conforms to the norm.

For industries and types of activity with a high potential risk of accidents with severe consequences, the key condition for ensuring safety is personnel reliability. Professional selection is one of the ways of addressing this task.

Professional selection is characterized by the following concepts:

• • profession — a sphere of labor activity for which a particular object of labor, content, and conditions of labor are specific;
• • professional selection — a scientifically grounded choice of workers from a group of candidates for hiring (or referral for training) in a particular profession, specialty, or position;
• • professional suitability — the correspondence of a worker, in terms of his professional knowledge, skills, experience, social, psychophysiological, and other personal and individual qualities, to the requirements of a specific profession (specialty, position);
• • professional qualities — psychophysiological, social-psychological, and other qualities, as well as the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed by a worker for the safe and productive performance of work (operations, functions) in a profession (position);
• • methods for determining professional qualities — scientifically grounded ways and means of identifying and assessing professional qualities;

• criterion for assessing a professional quality — an indicator by which the corresponding quality is measured (assessed) or compared.

Forms and stages of professional selection — medical, medico-psychological, and psychological (psychophysiological) — are included in the complex of preventive measures against occupational injury. Professional selection is regarded as an exceptionally important organizational-psychological measure both for society and for each individual person.

Based on professiographic studies conducted on the conditions, content, and hazards of labor at industrial, transport, and construction enterprises, the professionally important qualities used to assess worker suitability have been identified and divided into three groups:

A. Professional knowledge and skills.

B. Social-psychological qualities.

C. Physiological and psychophysiological qualities.

In a specific worker, each quality may be present to a different degree, for example, professional skills may range from mastery to a complete absence thereof.

In professional selection, the following methods of testing and assessing the degree of expression of professional qualities are used:

• a) examination — to determine and assess the level of professional knowledge, skills, and abilities;
• b) expert assessments — to assess social-psychological and emotional-volitional qualities;
• c) psychophysiological diagnostics and testing — to test and assess physiological and psychophysiological qualities.

For example, the determination of such social-psychological qualities as discipline, responsibility, and attitude toward alcohol and drugs is carried out using the method of expert assessment. Its essence consists in having three (or more) experts fill out a form—these experts being the subject's immediate supervisor (foreman, mechanic, dispatcher), the head of the shop, and a team leader (or one of the experienced and respected workers who know the subject well). The quality is assessed on a five-point scale.

The highest manifestation of a quality indicated in the questionnaire is rated five points. For each quality, an average score is derived from the data of the three questionnaires.

To determine psychophysiological qualities, a set of survey, test, and apparatus-based methods is used. The measurement and assessment of psychophysiological qualities, such as, for example, the speed of psychomotor reactions, visual acuity, depth perception, color perception, hearing acuity, sound differentiation, sustained attention, and distribution of attention, are carried out using computerized versions of apparatus-based methods.

Qualities selected as professionally important for particular categories of workers have varying degrees of significance for different professions. Some qualities are absolutely essential and cannot be compensated for by a high level of other qualities. For example, a locomotive engineer's visual acuity must not fall below the established norm and cannot be compensated for by high depth-perception scores. At the same time, a quality such as purposefulness (persistence) can quite readily be compensated for by a high level of conscientiousness and discipline.