The Effect of Personality Type on Human Performance Tool Compliance and General Recommendations for Enhancement of the its Practical Utilization

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of personality type on human performance tool compliance in nuclear power plants (NPPs) and to propose general recommendations for an enhancement of its practical utilization. Background: Various guidelines, regulating criteria, and recommendations have been developed to prevent human errors in NPPs. Despite these efforts, the accidents sometimes caused by human errors have steadily occurred, and therefore, various human performance tools have been adopted as countermeasures against human errors. The major and inevitable contributing factors among the many hazards to human errors might be the trait and personality, which are considered to be the inner world of humans. Thus, we try to investigate the utilization of human performance tools by considering the different types of operating crew personalities, and we suggested more practical recommendations to prevent human errors according to the personality. Method: We developed the Questionnaire using the Big 6 (HEXACO) models, which are human performance tools for in NPPs, and individual (condition) variables to investigate the effect of personality types on human performance tools. We slightly modified them to help the survey respondents understand them better. A survey was conducted for ordinary people over the age of 20. SPSS 22.0 was used to perform a correlation analysis and a hierarchical regression analysis to find the relationship between personality types and human performance tools. Results: The utilization of human performance tools shows significant differences statistically by personality. The correlation result reveals that the types of Honesty (H), Extraversion (X), Conscientiousness (C), and Openness to experience (O) show a higher utilization of human performance tools. In hierarchical regression results, human performance tools of task preview, questioning attitude, stopping when unsure, self-checking, effective communication, and place-keeping show a higher utilization with personality types. However, the Agreeableness (A) type did not show significant differences statistically with human performance tools. Conclusion: We tried to investigate the utilization of human performance tools by considering the different types of human personality and provide more practical recommendations to prevent human errors according to the personality. These results will be able to prevent human errors owing to the characteristics (advantages and disadvantages) of personality types. Application: This information can be utilized as guidelines for proactive recommendations according to the workers personalities for more practical human performance tools to prevent human errors in an NPP.