Modeling the Effect of a Socio-Psychological Process on Construction Workers' Safety Behavior

摘要

Although the vast majority of construction accidents are caused by workers' unsafe behavior, the management of safety behavior remains inadequate. To reduce unsafe behaviors, construction managers have mainly relied on external formal controls (e.g., penalties) to prevent a violation of safety rules. However, a number of studies recently demonstrated that social factors such as group norms and social identification play a critical role in shaping workers' safety behavior. Although previous studies have illuminated the social aspect of safety behavior, there is a noticeable paucity of research addressing the mechanism that underlies the link between cognitive process, social influence, and safety behavior. To address this issue, this study aims to understand the effect of workers' socio-cognitive processes on their safety behavior using experimental analyses with computer simulations. An agent-based model was developed to perform experimental analyses by incorporating the theoretical cognitive model of safety behavior and empirical finding regarding social influence. Then, model experiments were conducted to explore the effect of the interaction between the socio-cognitive process and different management interventions on workers' safety behaviors. The results indicate that frequent managerial feedback has a positive but limited influence on workers' safety behavior. In addition, it was also found that workers' safety behavior can be further improved by combining the strict managers' risk acceptance and stimulation of workers' project-based identity. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on construction safety by modeling the socio-cognitive mechanism of safety behavior and exploring how the mechanism interacts with different management interventions.