Personality, Attitudes and Climate

As we have seen in Chapter 1, the vast majority of accidents are caused by people. Sometimes their behaviour is a result of ignorance, but more often it is not. For example, drivers are taught how to drive and have to pass a test, usually having both theoretical and practical elements, before they are allowed to drive unaccompanied. Despite this, road accidents continue to occur. Given that the majority of accidents are caused by knowledgeable people behaving in ways that lead to accidents, how can we understand what caused them to behave as they did  

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Other key ideas within the cognitive theories that are often employed within social research are those of values, attitudes and beliefs (Baron et a/. 2006). These elements are often seen as the basic criteria of many social phenomena, including the highly complex concept of culture, although it is attitudes, the inherent disposition to respond favourably or unfavourably to an object/person/ event (Aronson et a/. 2007), that are most frequently used, due to their accessibility through tools such as questionnaires or observed behaviours (Ajzen 2005). In construction, safety management often draws on this way of thinking in the use of safety climate surveys. 

Summarising the various concepts and definitions proposed, safety culture appears to be the broader, manifest concept behind the fiamewoik of safety climate. Safety cultme is the source for patterns of behaviour which can be observed, described and changed (Goodmaim 2004), whereas safely climate is the sum of behaviours and attitudes based on common assumptions and beliefs toward patient safety. Cox and Flin (1998) describe culture as an organisation s personality while climate is seen as the organisation s mood . 

Consider the three sides of "The Safety Triad" I introduced in Chapter 2 (see Figure 2.2). One side is for environment, including tools, equipment, engineering design, climate, and housekeeping factors. Another side of this triangle stands for behavior, the actions everyone did or did not perform related to an incident. The third side represents person factors, or the internal feeling states of the people involved in the incident—their attitudes, perceptions, and personality characteristics. 

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