Abstract: The paper seeks to explain the seeming paradox whereby
workers’ safety behaviour during routine work depends largely on supervisory
contingencies (i.e. pressures and rewards), rather than on self-preservation.
We identify three behavioural tendencies accountable for underweighting of
outcomes associated with safe behaviour, i.e. delayed outcomes (i.e. melioration
bias), rare or uncertain outcomes (i.e. recency bias), and outcomes concerning social
externalities. Jointly, they result in a tendency to favour unsafe behaviour in
many routine work situations. Examination of effective and ineffective intervention
programmes suggests that the key to success lies in providing frequent, personally
meaningful, and immediate rewards for safe conduct, overriding the costs
associated with that behaviour and exceeding the benefits of unsafe behaviour.
Keywords: behavioural safety; risk perception; safety climate.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Zohar, D. and Erev, I.
(2007) ‘On the difficulty of promoting workers’ safety behaviour: overcoming
the underweighting of routine risks’, Int. J. Risk Assessment and Management,
Vol. 7, No. 2, pp.122–136