Evaluating person factors

As discussed earlier in this text, person factors refer to subjective or internal aspects of people. They are reflected in commonly used terms like attitude, perception, feeling, intention, value, intelligence, cognitive style, and personality trait. You can find many surveys that measure specific person factors of target populations ranging from children to adults. Some of these factors are presumed to be traits, others are considered states. It is important to understand the difference when you consider the evaluation potential of a particular survey. 

Person traits. Theoretically, traits are relatively permanent characteristics of people they do not vary much over time or across situations. The popular Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, for example, was designed to measure where individuals fall along four dichotomous personality dimensions extroversion vs. introversion, sensing vs. intuition, thinking 

Person states. Person states are characteristics that can change from moment to moment, depending on situations and personal interactions (as discussed in Chapter 15). When our goals are thwarted, for example, we can be in a state of frustration. When experiences lead us to believe we have little control over events around us, we can be in a state of apathy or helplessness. Person states can influence behaviors. Frustration, for example, often provokes aggressive behavior (Dollard et al., 1939) and perceptions of helplessness inhibit constructive behavior or facilitate inactivity (Abramson et al., 1989). 

Measures of person states can be used to evaluate perceptions of culture change and to pinpoint areas of a culture that need special intervention attention. Like most culture surveys, our Safety Culture Survey asks participants to answer questions on a five-point continuum (from highly disagree to highly agree) about their perceptions of the safety culture. Issues include the perceived amount of management support for safety, the willingness of 

When told about safety hazards, supervisors are 

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The auditory damage caused by noise, NIHL, depends on exposure type sound level, duration, type of noise, and frequency, as well as personal factors like susceptibility to noise, age, smoking, prior history of hearing/ear damage (Rezaee et al., 2011). The approach to evaluate and prevent this should be multidisciplinary task covering all aspects related to noise and noise effects and their combined interactions. Actually, these interactions, impulsiveness of noise, genetic susceptibility, ototoxic chemicals and leisure noise cannot be modelled (Rabinowitz et al., 2013). 

As mentioned in Sections 1 and 2, a major source of inefficiencies in HRA methods is the appropriate modeling of PSEs, which is a difficult task, in the first place. This research proposes a) a systematic identification of the organizational, environmental and personal factors that have an impact on human errors in construction, and b) an evaluation procedure concerning the significance of each one of these factors. Subsections 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 present the proposed method in this research. 

Perhaps every reader realizes that our past experiences influence our present perceptions. In Chapter 3, we considered shifts in methods and perceptions needed to achieve a Total Safety Culture. When I give workshops on paradigm shifts, someone invariably expresses concern about resistance. "He (or she) keeps playing old tapes and is not open to new ideas," is a common refrain. Past experiences are biasing present perceptions. Actually, there is a long trail of intertwined factors here. Past experiences filter through a personal evaluation process that is influenced by person factors, including many past perceived experiences. The cumulative collection of these previous perceived experiences biases every new experience and makes it indeed difficult to "teach an old dog new tricks."... 

The defining and observing processes of DO IT provide opportunities to evaluate the situational factors contributing to at-risk behavior and a possible injury. This chapter details the procedures of a behavioral safety analysis, including a step-by-step examination of the situational, social, and personal factors influencing at-risk behavior in order to determine the most cost-effective corrective action. Critical distinctions are made between four types of intervention—instruction, motivation, support, and self-management—between training and education, and between accountability and responsibility. 

Principle 30 When people evaluate others they focus on internal factors when evaluating personal performance, they focus on external factors. 

Social Factors. The personalities of co-w orkers and supervisors arc also factors to be considered when evaluating Uie workplace. The liigher Uie employee morale, Uie lower Uie potcnUal for accidents. Another factor is Uie relationship of one job to another, and wheUier Uie job requires Uie coordinating of information, materials, and human effort. 

Not the least of the factors for consideration in evaluating a possible risk pertains to the characteristics of those persons exposed. A hazard does not become an actuality until there is a risk of human exposure. Consequently, in evaluating the risk, you must take into account those who are or might be exposed, not only in terms of numbers but also in relation to the realities of individual variation and predisposition. These considerations can be difficult in a political environment that demands equality. However, it should be recognized that not all persons are equal either in their predisposition towards an adverse response to a toxic assault or in the severity of their response to that assault. Differences in response can occur, for example, by reason of age, sex, and physical fitness. A classic example exists in the manufacture and processing of female endocrine hormones in which a woman, and particularly a pregnant woman, may be more at risk than a man under the same circumstances. Less dramatic, but... 

Particularly the evaluation of life events is unsatisfactory. Axis IV provides an opportunity to assess the pathogenic valence of a psychosocial stressor. According to DSM-III-R, however, the rating should be based on the clinician s assessment of the stress an average person in similar circumstances and with similar sociocultural values would experience from the particular psychosocial stressor [American Psychiatric Association 1987, p. 19). But the factor personality vulnerability is ignored and only absolute events are recorded. 

However, aging is not related to a general decline in intellectual abilities. Losses occur mainly in areas of performance that are directly dependent on intact sensory and motor abilities. Older persons also tend to encounter difficulties when called upon to perform cognitive and other tasks under pressure of time. The subjective significance of a task and a person s familiarity with the conditions under which performance is evaluated are further factors that assume greater importance in older people than in the young. 

The correlates of attitudes toward lithium compliance in bipolar patients were studied by Cochran and Gitlin (189). This questionnaire study was part of a larger design looking at factors in lithium prophylaxis. The questionnaire packets were sent to 146 patients, 48 of whom were ultimately included in the analysis. This study evaluated the usefulness of Ajzen and Fishbein s Theory of Reasoned Action to explain the relationships among lithium-related beliefs and attitudes, normative beliefs, behavioral intentions, and self-reported compliance with treatment. According to the model, lithium patients normative beliefs (i.e., beliefs that other relevant people such as family, friends, personal psychiatrist, and lithium experts want the patient to take lithium) predict their subjective norms, which is the expectation that others want them to take lithium. Subsequently, both the subjective norm and the evaluative behavioral attitudes (i.e., positive nature of treatment) were predictive of the patients reported intent to take lithium. This, in turn, was predictive of concurrent self-reported compliance with the medication regimen. These results underscore the importance of the patient-physician relationship in lithium compliance. 

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