| Warning: Habituation can lead to lost-time injuries |
In World Wars 1 and 2, newly assigned “green” troops
were notoriously more likely to be killed in battle than soldiers
who had survived their first few months in the field.
While the new troops were quick to dive for cover at the slightest
sound of enemy activity, battle-hardened veterans would proceed
more coolly under fire, and seemed to sense when they were in immediate
danger. But sometimes veterans did get injured or killed—in
the most surprising circumstances. They would ignore an obvious
risk.
In the workplace, new workers, ignorant of the risks, and unaccustomed
to following safe work procedures, are at greatest risk for workplace
injury, even though they are more alert than their more experienced
colleagues to workplace noise and danger signals. Yet experienced
workers do get injured and killed, and sometimes very senior employees
are injured in circumstances that leave their supervisors and managers
shaking their heads in disbelief.
Veteran workers have been known to sustain injuries through taking
serious safety short-cuts, removing guards, failing to follow lockout/tagout,
or blithely ignoring warning bells and whistles.
Psychologists call this habituation
It is a primitive response that can be demonstrated in the natural
world.
One example requires tapping gently on the shell of a tortoise.
The first time you do this, the tortoise withdraws smartly into
its shell and remains there for several minutes. Eventually it will
extend its head and legs cautiously and continue on its way. When
you tap the shell again, it will once more withdraw. If you persist
on tapping on the shell each time the tortoise extends his head
and limbs, he will withdraw for shorter and shorter periods, and
after quite a short time, ignore the tapping altogether. The tortoise
will have become habituated to the interference.
Habituation is a consistent phenomenon. If there is no obvious consequence
(good or bad), from responding to a stimulus, the organism—be
it a soldier, a tortoise, or an employee—stops reacting to
it. It is a waste of time and energy to continue to respond to an
activator that seems to have no significance. The tortoise will
never get enough to eat if it reacts by hiding every time it hears
the rustle of grass across its shell.
The soldier will never be able to fight the enemy
if all it takes to make him dive for cover is a loud noise. The
worker will never get any work done, if he stops and goes into a
defensive position each time he hears equipment start up around
him.
Consider the distractions and distress you would experience if you
could not learn to ignore voices, radios, traffic
and machinery in your work area. Eventually these become insignificant
background noise that have little power to divert your attention.
Habituation and safety
While it is natural to habituate to every day activators that are
not supported by consequences, this unfortunately includes safety
warning devices. Remaining attentive to safety activators—warning
signs, flashing lights, beepers, bells—is a continuous fight
with habituation.
Consider the warning emitted by a reversing delivery truck. You
can probably reflect on personal experiences quite similar to the
one shown in the accompanying sketches.
The warning “beep” has given the driver a false sense
of security. He assumes that the warning beeper is sufficient to
tell any workers in the danger area to move away. He feels less
need to check for pedestrians in his blind area. At the same time,
the worker has become habituated to the sound. He ignores the familiar
beep, as he “knows” that the driver of a vehicle that
is beeping is proceeding cautiously and checking for pedestrians.
This particular activator has actually reduced both the driver’s
and the pedestrian’s perceived risk, and contributed to at-risk
behaviors by both of them.
The key lesson in this is to understand and prevent over-reliance
on activators.
There is no substitute for safe work procedures
that avoid at-risk behaviors by all workers.
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