Controlled versus Automatic Processes: Which Is Dominant to Safety? The Moderating Effect of Inhibitory Control

Yaoshan Xu,Weidong Ding,Yongjuan Li,Fan Lu,Amanda Bruce

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0087881

Abstract

This study explores the precursors of employees' safety behaviors based on a dual-process model, which suggests that human behaviors are determined by both controlled and automatic cognitive processes. Employees' responses to a self-reported survey on safety attitudes capture their controlled cognitive process, while the automatic association concerning safety measured by an Implicit Association Test (IAT) reflects employees' automatic cognitive processes about safety. In addition, this study investigates the moderating effects of inhibition on the relationship between self-reported safety attitude and safety behavior, and that between automatic associations towards safety and safety behavior. The results suggest significant main effects of self-reported safety attitude and automatic association on safety behaviors. Further, the interaction between self-reported safety attitude and inhibition and that between automatic association and inhibition each predict unique variances in safety behavior. Specifically, the safety behaviors of employees with lower level of inhibitory control are influenced more by automatic association, whereas those of employees with higher level of inhibitory control are guided more by self-reported safety attitudes. These results suggest that safety behavior is the joint outcome of both controlled and automatic cognitive processes, and the relative importance of these cognitive processes depends on employees' individual differences in inhibitory control. The implications of these findings for theoretical and practical issues are discussed at the end.

Highlights

Despite attempts to improve workplace safety, high rates of jobrelated accidents and injuries persist worldwide [1,2]
Significant individual differences do exist because the Implicit Association Test (IAT) effect ranges from 20.57 to 2.07, and the standard deviation (SD) is relatively large (SD = 0.54)
General safety attitude was significantly positively related to safety participation, and safety compromise was significantly negatively related to safety compliance and safety participation

Summary

Introduction

Despite attempts to improve workplace safety, high rates of jobrelated accidents and injuries persist worldwide [1,2]. 120 million workplace-related accidents occur every year, resulting in 200,000 fatalities and 4%–5% loss of gross domestic product worldwide [3]. Unsafe behaviors of employees (i.e., violations) are often cited as the triggers of accidents and injuries [5]. Researchers have distinguished two types of safety behaviors — namely, safety compliance and safety participation [7] — that directly predict accidents and injuries [2]. Safety compliance refers to the behavior focused on meeting minimum safety standards at work, such as compliance with safety procedures, which is the opposite of violation (noncompliance) [8]. Safety participation refers to voluntary safety behaviors, such as helping coworkers with safety-related issues [9]

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Discussion

Conclusion