Open HSME menu
Subscribe Login

Home / Articles and Press Releases / Article / 7 Cognitive Biases That Lead to Unsafe Work

CATEGORIES

  • Latest Issue
  • Above The Neck Protection
  • Chemical Protection
  • Confined Space
  • Construction
  • Emergency Procedures
  • Energy, Oil, and Mining Industries
  • Eye Protection
  • Fall Protection
  • Gas Detection
  • Hand Protection
  • Hazardous and Explosive Atmospheres
  • Health and Safety Awareness
  • Hearing Protection
  • Heat
  • Lighting and ATEX
  • Noise Monitoring
  • Personal Protective Equipment
  • Respiratory Protection
  • Safety Footwear
  • Safety Technology
  • Safety Training
  • Slips, Trips, and Falls
  • Wellbeing at work
  • Working at Height
  • Working rights

MORE

  • Press Release
  • Events
  • Videos
  • Webinars
  • Magazines

COMPANY

  • About
  • Advertising
  • Newsletter
  • Contact
Open HSME menu
Subscribe

Home / Articles and Press Releases / Article / 7 Cognitive Biases That Lead to Unsafe Work

CATEGORIES

  • Latest Issue
  • Above The Neck Protection
  • Chemical Protection
  • Confined Space
  • Construction
  • Emergency Procedures
  • Energy, Oil, and Mining Industries
  • Eye Protection
  • Fall Protection
  • Gas Detection
  • Hand Protection
  • Hazardous and Explosive Atmospheres
  • Health and Safety Awareness
  • Hearing Protection
  • Heat
  • Lighting and ATEX
  • Noise Monitoring
  • Personal Protective Equipment
  • Respiratory Protection
  • Safety Footwear
  • Safety Technology
  • Safety Training
  • Slips, Trips, and Falls
  • Wellbeing at work
  • Working at Height
  • Working rights

MORE

  • Press Release
  • Events
  • Videos
  • Webinars
  • Magazines

COMPANY

  • About
  • Advertising
  • Newsletter
  • Contact

CATEGORIES

  • Safety Signage
  • Heat and Flame
  • Article
  • Press Release
  • Air Pollution
  • Above The Neck Protection
  • Chemical Protection
  • Confined Space
  • Construction
  • Emergency Procedures
  • Energy, Oil, and Mining Industries
  • Eye Protection
  • Fall Protection
  • Gas Detection
  • Hand Protection
  • Hazardous and Explosive Atmospheres
  • Health and Safety Awareness
  • Hearing Protection
  • Heat
  • Lighting and ATEX
  • Noise Monitoring
  • Offshore Platform Safety
  • Personal Protective Equipment
  • Regulations & Legislations
  • Respiratory Protection
  • Safety Footwear
  • Safety Technology
  • Safety Training
  • Slips, Trips, and Falls
  • Wellbeing at work
  • Working at Height
  • Working rights

Article

7 Cognitive Biases That Lead to Unsafe Work

By Joe Geng

| Read Bio

Published: February 19th, 2020

Share this article

Have you ever thought, “Oh, that won’t happen to me,” even if statistics say it’s likely? Do you always take the same route home from work, even though there might be other, better options? Have you skipped wearing sunscreen because “just a couple of hours of sun won’t do much harm”?

If so, you’ve operated from an unconscious cognitive bias (specifically, the bias of ignoring the baseline, the default bias, and the bias of underestimating cumulative risk).

When we humans make decisions, we follow all kinds of assumptions based on what has happened to us before, what others have told us, and what we see right in front of our eyes. Without our natural biases, we wouldn’t really be able to function, as we wouldn’t be able to make any decisions at all.

Sometimes, though, our biases pose a danger to us, by leading us to act in unsafe ways. To be safer at work, we have to be consciously aware of our biases and act against them when needed. And yes, this applies to both management and workers.

Let’s take a closer look at seven cognitive biases and how they can lead to unsafe work.

#1: Overconfidence Bias

Hardly anyone considers themselves overconfident, but nearly everyone is. Put simply: Most people believe they are more agile and smarter, as well as better at most tasks, than they actually are.

As an example, do you believe that you are an above-average or below-average driver? No less than 93 percent of people who respond to that question say they are above average—and surely half of them are wrong. 

In the workplace, overconfidence translates to doing things like skipping safety processes, assuming we can work as safely at 4 p.m. as we did at 10 a.m., ignoring the fact that the floor is understaffed that day, not getting help when we need it, assuming we know how a machine functions under all conditions—the list goes on and on.

In short, overconfidence leads us to skip best practices we know we should do.

The worst thing about overconfidence is that you get positive reinforcement all the way up until disaster strikes. If you’re doing something in an unsafe way, and you do it 500 times without injury, you start forgetting that it’s unsafe. Then you get to 501.

#2: Ignoring Blind Spots

A worker uses a knife to trim the excess off an extruded plastic part. Her attention is on her knife, on the part she is holding, on the speed of the line. Without looking, she puts her hand down to grab a clamp—unaware that another worker has left an open knife on the table. 

When she cuts herself, she is the victim of a cognitive bias that assumes nothing has changed in the environment to endanger her. Never before has a worker left a knife there—so her habituation to the environment has caused a blind spot. 

Blind spots make us vulnerable and can be caused by any number of factors. For instance, sometimes obvious dangers can cause blind spots to less obvious dangers.

Suppose, for example, a factory has a metal-stamping machine which has crushed workers’ hands several times in the past, causing horrible injuries. When working with this machine, everyone watches the stamper like a hawk. Meanwhile, there’s also an automatic arm that moves each piece of metal out of the way for the next to be stamped. It has exposed gears that can pinch and destroy a finger, but no one has ever experienced that injury. This automatic arm may be a blind spot danger—unseen, hidden by the obvious danger.

#3: Confirmation Bias

The confirmation bias, as defined by Scott Plous in The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making, refers to the natural human tendency to “search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms our pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses.”

In other words, we often see only what we expect to see.

In 7 Insights Into Safety Leadership, safety expert Thomas Krause relates an incident in which a miner with thirty years’ experience died when the roof of a tunnel collapsed. The collapse came right after he and an equally experienced foreman had inspected the tunnel for structural issues, and found none. After the incident, an investigation found no less than 137 missing bolts, along with obviously compromised roof planks.

How had the foreman and the miner not seen these problems? The answer was simple: they’d done previous inspections of other tunnels in this mine without seeing any problems, so they didn’t expect to see any in this tunnel. With the confirmation bias, not only do we see what we expect to see, but our pre-programmed brains actively ignore anything that contradicts our first assumptions. 

#4: Ignoring the Baseline

All of us tend to think that our own circumstances are somehow unique, and we tend to ignore the typical statistics governing our activities. That includes accident rates.

This cognitive bias has a name: “ignoring the baseline.” More than ignoring the baseline, we are often in active denial about the baseline.

Even though workers have heard about their fellows developing serious conditions from, say, handling fiberglass insulation without gloves, they continue to do it—assuming, somehow, that it won’t happen to them.

Accidents and injuries can happen to anyone, including you and your workers.

#5: Default Bias

Whenever a choice is presented to us, we tend to choose the defaults—it’s not just easier and quicker, but we assume that the defaults are somehow the safest bet.

That means that when a worker approaches a task or a machine, they always tend to look for the defaults—whether someone else has explained the other options, or not.

Because of this bias, we must be very thoughtful in what is established as the default. For instance, if you have five different kinds of safety gloves available in the workplace, you need to make it absolutely clear which are the default gloves for a particular kind of work. That might mean a big picture of the default gloves next to a particular machine, or better yet a rack with those specific gloves placed next to the machine.

#6: Underestimating Cumulative Risk

Humans tend to vastly underestimate cumulative risk—the things that are harming them slowly, over time.

Everyone knows the fable about frogs and boiling water. If you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump out safely. But if you put the foolish amphibian in cold water and boil it slowly, it will not recognize the danger in time, and it will die. Unfortunately, this analogy can be applied again and again to work safety.

People handle “just a little bit” of a dangerous chemical every day until they develop skin conditions or neurological issues or cancer.

People use vibration tools which are causing neurological damage over several years without noticing until it’s too late.

Gloves wear thin and get holes, but people keep on using them. If these gloves had been issued on day one, they would never have been accepted.

#7: Recency and Availability Bias

The recency bias, also known as the “availability bias” of the human mind means that we tend to focus on top-of-mind, recent events, with lots of readily available information, giving them more importance than they deserve.

The recency and availability bias means that we are always looking at the immediate past for answers, instead of looking forward.

If somebody loses a finger working with a harvester on a farm, everyone is going to be very careful around harvesters for a while. Attention will be paid to new gloves, guardrails, and protocols around harvesters. Meanwhile, workers are deploying pesticides bare-handed, they’re fiddling with open tractor engines while the tractors are running, they’re operating power takeoff flywheels without any training.

The lost finger is a tragedy, but it could be an outlier injury, not a danger faced by many workers in every shift. Indeed, dangers may become hidden by the focus on this recent event, as no overall hazard assessments are taking place.

Train Yourself to Counteract Yout Biases

These cognitive biases are largely unconscious. They happen instantly, without thinking. But that doesn’t mean that we are helpless against them.

We can overcome our biases with conscious thought. Simply by being aware of these common biases, we can begin to counteract them. 

Where safety is involved, we must pause, ask ourselves what biases might be at play, and question whether those biases could be leading to unsafe behavior. We can then take different actions, ensuring a safer work environment.

Original post: https://www.superiorglove.com/blog/7-cognitive-biases-that-lead-to-unsafe-work?utm_source=social&utm_medium=linkedin&utm_campaign=cognitive-biases. By Joe Geng, Vice President of Superior Glove.

Share this article

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joe Geng

Vice President of Superior Glove.

POPULAR POSTS BY Joe Geng

Superior Glove Logo

Article

7 Cognitive Biases That Lead to Unsafe Work

Superior Glove Blog Image

Article

5 Strategies to Create Safer Work Environments

Get email updates

Sign up for the HSME newsletter

Keep up-to-date through the power of email with the region's only industrial health and safety magazine - delivering the latest news and products to satisfy all your occupational safety needs.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

FEATURED ARTICLES

Advertisement

SOCIAL MEDIA

HSME on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/HSMEMagazine/

Advertisement

SOCIAL MEDIA

HSME on Twitter

hsmemagazine HSME Magazine @hsmemagazine ·
21h

isafe MOBILE announces the immediate availability of the world’s first 5G smartphone for ATEX and IECEx zone 1/21.

The IS540.1 is available immediately, find out more today: https://www.hsmemagazine.com/press-release/is540-1-available-now/

#hsmemagazine #isafeMOBILE #ATEX #IECEx

Reply on Twitter 1620747838971088898 Retweet on Twitter 1620747838971088898 Like on Twitter 1620747838971088898 2 Twitter 1620747838971088898

Advertisement

SUBSCRIBE

Stay up to date with our newsletter

Keep up-to-date through the power of email with the region’s only industrial health and safety magazine – delivering the latest news and products to satisfy all your occupational safety needs.

 

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Subscribe

SUBSCRIBE TO HSME MAGAZINE

5 reasons to subscribe to our digital and print package

  • Stay up to date from anywhere in the world, with instant access to the latest issue straight from your phone, tablet or laptop.
  • Trust that you’re getting the best content from our range of internationally accredited authors.
  • Get full access to our archives and see how occupational safety has evolved with us over the years.
  • Enjoy our monthly newsletter curated with up-to-the-minute news and a selection of editor’s top picks.
  • Hot off the press and straight to your door – look forward to your own glossy copy of HSME, delivered five times a year
Subscribe View Subscription levels

STAY SAFE & INFORMED

Subscribe to the best health & safety articles, news, products and regulations

Find out more

Stay up to date with our newsletter

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

ABOUT

  • About HSME
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us

YOUR ACCOUNT

Sign In Register Account Subscribe to HSME

RESOURCES

Request Media Pack

CONNECT

ACCREDITATIONS

Copyright Bay Publishing 2023. All Rights reserved.

Designed & Built by:
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
Cookie settingsACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT