Safety climate and the Theory of Planned Behavior: Towards the prediction of unsafe behavior

Abstract

[Abstract] The present study is concerned with the human factors that contribute to violations in aviation maintenance. Much of our previous research in this area has been based on safety climate surveys and the analysis of relations among core dimensions of climate. In this study, we tap into mainstream psychological theory to help clarify the mechanisms underlying the links between climate and behavior. Specifically, we demonstrate the usefulness of Ajzen's (1991Ajzen's ( , 2001) Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to understanding violation behaviors in aircraft maintenance. A questionnaire was administered to 307 aircraft maintenance workers. Constructs measured by the survey included perceptions of management attitudes to safety, own attitudes to violations, intention to violate, group norms, workplace pressures, and violations. A model based on the TPB illustrated hypothetical connections among these variables. Path analyses using AMOS suggested some theoretically justifiable modifications to the model. Fit statistics of the revised model were excellent with intentions, group norms, and personal attitudes combining to explain 50% of the variance in self-reported violations. The model highlighted the importance of management attitudes and group norms as direct and indirect predictors of violation behavior. We conclude that the TPB is a useful tool for understanding the psychological background to the procedural violations so often associated with incidents and accidents.

Trench Safety–Using a Qualitative Approach to Understand Barriers and Develop Strategies to Improve Trenching Practices

“…Christian and colleagues (2009) found that safety performance was positively related to both locus of control and safety attitudes and negatively related to propensity for risk taking, although none of these relationships were strong. Another study found that individuals who do not value the importance of safety behaviors, feel pressured not to engage in safe behaviors, or do not feel like they have control over their own safe behaviors are not likely to engage in safe behaviors (Fogarty & Shaw, 2010). The above findings suggest that in addition to lack of knowledge and motivation, individual characteristics of trench workers could provide some explanation for why workers are not engaging in proper trenching-safety behaviors.…”

Impact of Attitudinal Ambivalence on Safety Behaviour in Construction

“…e TPB considers individual and environmental influence and could be used to explain human behaviour in a satisfactory extend. A search of existing literature showed that TPB has been cited more than 10,000 times and successfully applied in various research fields to predict safety-related behaviour such as unsafe driving behaviour [18], green exercise [19], and the relationship between safety climate and unsafe behaviour [10,11].…”

“…Individually, "not willing to perform safely" can be considered as a decision-making process [8] and can be explained with psychological theories because they address how the mind, perceptions, and beliefs influence safety behaviour. e prevailing theoretical framework of unsafe acts is the eory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) [9], and it has been widely applied to analyse unsafe acts in construction [10,11] and other research fields.…”

An Evaluation of the Relationships between Collegiate Aviation Safety Management System Initiative, Self-Efficacy, Transformational Safety Leadership and Safety Behavior mediated by Safety Motivation

“…The theory explains the psychological aspects of employee behavior and the principal assumption of the TPB has to do with the intentions behind any human action. Per Fogarty and Shaw (2009), an individual's own attitude toward behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control can be used to predict intentions regarding any safety issue. Intention can in this way be used to predict actual safety behavior.…”