Safety issues have caused a large amount of personnel and property losses. Most safety accidents are caused by a lack of individual safety behavior. Uncertainty is a key factor that affects individual safety behavior. However, there is a lot of controversy in existing research on the relationship between uncertainty and safety behavior. Through literature review, we found that a possible reason for the conflicting relationship between uncertainty and safety behavior is that previous studies did not distinguish risk from ambiguity in exploring the relationship between uncertainty and safety behavior. In this study, we distinguished between ambiguity attitude and risk attitude, and explored how individual ambiguity attitude and risk attitude affect safety behavior and the underlying psychological mechanisms.
Study 1 consists of two sub-studies, Study la and Study 1b. In Study la, we used a computer-simulated chemical plant operation task to explore how individual risk attitude and ambiguity attitude affect safety behavior and safety performance. Sixty-night college students completed the simulated chemical plant operation task and the risk and ambiguity decision task. The results showed that ambiguity seeking individuals exhibited more safety behavior, while ambiguity aversion individuals exhibited less safety behavior. There was no significant relationship between risk attitude and safety behavior. The conclusion did not change after controlling for demographic variables such as gender, age, and education level. Furthermore, we found that individual ambiguity attitude affected safety behavior and then affect safety performance. Specifically, ambiguity aversion individuals exhibited less safety behavior, and individuals with more safety behavior exhibited worser safety performance. Study 1b, we conducted on-site surveys of 132 employees in the enterprise. Participants completed the risk and ambiguity decision task, and a self-reported measure of safety behavior. The results were the same as in Study la: ambiguity attitude significantly affected safety behavior. Ambiguity seeking individuals exhibited higher safety behavior, while ambiguity aversion individuals exhibited less safety behavior. Risk attitude did not significantly affect safety behavior. The results of both sub一studies indicated that ambiguity attitude rather than risk attitude affect individual safety behavior.
Study 2 aimed to explore the underlying psychological mechanisms underlying the relationship between individual ambiguity attitude and safety behavior. Sixty-five college students completed the simulated chemical plant operation task, the risk and ambiguity decision task, and self-reported measures of safety motivation, work pressure, and social value orientation. The results showed that ambiguity attitudes have a positive effect on safety performance through a chain mediation of social value orientation and safety behavior. Specifically, ambiguity aversion individuals exhibited lower level of social-interest and individuals with lower level of social-interest are more likely to invest more resources in themselves, resulting in more safety behavior and better safety performance. The mediating roles of safety motivation and work pressure were not significant.
This study found that ambiguity attitude, rather than risk attitude, affected individual safety behavior, ambiguity attitude negatively predict safety behavior and safety performance and social value orientation and safety behavior play a chain mediating role between ambiguity attitudes and safety performance. This study contributes to understand how uncertainty affects safety behavior and safety performance, and provides a reference for organizations and managers to develop effective safety strategies.
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