Cognitive Mechanism Of Construction Worker’s Unsafe Behaviors And Its Application

As an immediate cause of accidents, construction worker’s unsafe behavior iscommon on construction sites, which results in construction industry with a highaccident rate. There is therefore an urgent need for actions to minimize constructionworker’s unsafe behaviors to improve safety situation of construction industry. However,current researches fail to reveal mechanism of construction worker’s unsafe behaviors,and fewer safety measures could be used to minimize construction worker’s unsafebehaviors. Thus, a cognitive perspective was adopted to explore mechanism ofconstruction worker’s unsafe behaviors, identify causes of construction worker’s unsafebehaviors, and develop safety management tools to strengthen safety management ofcontractors.The efforts and outcomes include:1) According to an assumption that behavior is aproduct of human’s cognition, cognitive mechanism of unsafe behaviors was proposed,and cognitive behavioral model was also established, including cognitive principles,cognitive process, and cognitive characteristics.2) Based on the cognitive behavioralmodel, a cognitive behavioral model for construction workers was developed to adaptthe characteristics of construction worker’s behaviors and the needs to identify causes ofunsafe behaviors. In adition, four cognitive failures were identified, and mechanism ofcognitive failures was analyzed.3) Using literature review, theoretical analysis and casestudies, causes of four cognitive failures were identified with the mechanism ofcognitive failures, which are also the root causes of construction worker’s unsafebehaviors.4) The identified causes of construction worker’s unsafe behaviors wereempirically tested through observation, interview, and questionnaire survey, and theresults demonstrated that a) it was reasonable to identify the causes of constructionworker’s unsafe behavior from cognitive perspective; b) failure in ‘selecting a response’was the most primary causes of construction worker’s unsafe behavior; c)underestimating externality of construction worker’s unsafe behaviors would driveconstruction workers to select unsafe behaviors.5) Based on the identified causes ofunsafe behaviors, safety management tools focusing on construction worker’s unsafebehaviors were developed for the safety management suggested in OHSAS18001, including tools for indentifying and investigating causes of construction worker’s unsafebehaviors, management measures to minimize construction worker’s unsafe behaviors,departmentable responsibilities, safety checking approaches and procedure, and so on.In theoretical aspect, this thesis proposed the mediating effect of cognitive failuresin the influences of contractor’s management issues on construction worker’s unsafebehaviors, and provided a cognitive view and also a cognitive foundation for futurestudies on construction worker’s unsafe behaviors. In practical aspect, this thesisidentified specific causes of construction worker’s unsafe behaviors and developedmanagement tools to minimize unsafe behaviors, which are useful to promoteconstractor’s safety management on unsafe behaviors and improve contractor’s safetyperformance.