Abstract
This research developed and tested a model of the social contagion effect of coworkers’ safety violations on individual workers within construction crews. Both situational and routine safety violations were considered in this model. Empirical data were collected from 345 construction workers in China using a detailed questionnaire. The results showed that both types of safety violations made by coworkers were significantly related to individuals’ perceived social support and production pressure. Individuals’ attitudinal ambivalence toward safety compliance mediated the relationships between perceived social support and production pressure and both types of individuals’ safety violations. However, safety motivation only mediated the effects of perceived social support and production pressure on individuals’ situational safety violations. Further, this research supported the differences between situational and routine safety violations. Specifically, we found that individuals were more likely to imitate coworkers’ routine safety violations than their situational safety violations. Coworkers’ situational safety violations had an indirect effect on individuals’ situational safety violations mainly through perceived social support and safety motivation. By contrast, coworkers’ routine safety violations had an indirect effect on individuals’ routine safety violations mainly through perceived production pressure and attitudinal ambivalence. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications, research limitations, and future directions were discussed.
Highlights
Numerous efforts to improve construction safety have been focused on improving site conditions, such as allocation of personal protection equipment, arrangement of physical work environment, and adoption of management systems [1,2,3]
Our model presents the indirect effects of coworkers’ safety violations as taking place through social information processing: coworkers have indirect effects on the safety violations of individual workers via social safety cognitions and safety motivation and attitudes
Cronbach’s α was used to assess internal consistency reliability, which reflects correlations between measurement items belonging to one dimension [72]
Summary
Numerous efforts to improve construction safety have been focused on improving site conditions, such as allocation of personal protection equipment, arrangement of physical work environment, and adoption of management systems [1,2,3]. Construction environments have become dramatically safer over the past several decades [2]. Despite these improvements, worldwide, the construction industry still has a high frequency and severity of occupational injuries and fatalities [1,4,5], and much can still be done to improve construction safety [6]. Considering that nearly 80% of on-site accidents are caused by unsafe human behaviors, increasing understanding of, and eliminating other causes besides physical conditions—namely the unsafe behaviors of construction workers—is urgently needed [5]. Public Health 2018, 15, 773; doi:10.3390/ijerph15040773 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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