Making Sense of Risk and Decision Making in Safety

As Health & Safety professionals, perhaps it is worth considering that over time we have relied too heavily on organizational systems, processes, ‘common sense’ and rational-only approaches to understanding and managing risk.  When possibly we should be investing more time and effort into understanding how each of us is human, innately complex and fallible.  The process of making decisions, judgments and sense making in our world is inherently subjective, social and complex.

The ‘science’ of cognition invests its focus in the physicality of the brain and tends not to entertain the notion of ‘thinking outside of the brain’ or that any form of ‘thinking’ resides in other bodily organs.  However, science supports the idea of an unconscious mind, which is neither rational nor irrational, and that these minds are ‘non-rational’.

Research by Kahneman, Norretranders, Bargh, Wegner, Ariely, Fine and Gigerenzer demonstrates that the rational (or conscious) brain is rarely involved in our decision making. This is particularly the case in a range of unconscious or inner ‘states of mind’ for example:  anxiety, despair, fear, complacency, stress and functioning in ‘automatic’.

As humans, we undertake decisions and actions in three distinct ways. Even though humans have one brain, the mind operates at three speeds and in three distinct ‘functioning’ modes.  This has significant implications for how we assess and manage risk.  Many of the ways we seek to identify, manage and target risk considers only one mode of decision making, that of the rational mind.

We each constantly fluctuate between each of these minds as we go about decision making, judgment and What is the nature of human consciousness?  We fill up with emotion at the sound of music, can be transported to another place through the beauty of art or music and can be overcome by memories or emotions triggered by a simple smell, visual stimulation, music, food or touch without conscious intent.  We can operate machinery or drive a car in a trance, whilst concentrating on other things; and can complete work tasks with little thought or concentration.  Even when we make mistakes, we tell others ‘I wasn’t thinking’.  We get heartache through stress, and anxious and depressed seemingly without reason.

For centuries Tao Buddhism has believed in the concept of One Brain and Three Minds. Defined as Three Tan Tiens; these are the upper, middle and lower minds. Western society, Christian and Hebrew traditions know these as the Head, the Heart and the Gut.

The author of Brain Rules (2008) John Medina, discusses the evolution of the brain and mind in three unique stages. He labels these: the lizard brain, mammalian brain and human brain (Figure 1).

The internal feeling of emotion is highly personal, and can be somewhat confusing given that several emotions may be experienced at the same time; causing us to cloak or censor our emotions from the outside world.  We often resort to creating metaphors to describe our emotions, such as ‘a broken heart’ or ‘lump in the throat’.  At some point, we’ve all felt our heart racing when stressed or anxious, or we feel overwhelmed with emotion such as excessive guilt and fear, and feel physically sick or our gut aches. It is not uncommon for people who are not coping physically to go to the toilet, soil themselves, cry uncontrollably or have high blood pressure.  These sensations may come from the brain yet they trigger the body to shut down, and most importantly the sensations are felt in the heart and gut.

There are two forms of communications to the brain, bio-chemical and electrical. Information is constantly uploaded into our brain without our knowledge through the many senses of our body via these two processes. Our senses are not just our eyes, ears, touch, nose and taste.  How does gut feeling manifest and why? How do we sense we are wearing a watch on our wrist, shirt on our back or shoes on our feet?  And why are we not aware of the watch, the shirt or the shoes unless they are consciously brought to our attention?

We can think of our mind as an accelerator, which runs quite slowly when we’re in a rational or conscious state.  Norretranders tells us that this is approximately 16-40 bits/second.  In our rational state (Mind 1), we display high levels of consciousness.  Mind 1 is quite slow, and is where we do most of our logical, analytical and systematic thinking.  For example, when we’re working with systems i.e. reviewing JSAs, developing Work Methods Statements, reviewing risk registers or being engaged in safety conversations.  We seldom operate in Mind 1, in fact 98% of our decision making and enactment occurs in the arational or unconscious minds (Mind 2 and 3).  Mind 1 is utilized only when we stop, reflect and engage in systems or slow methodical tasks to work in analysis mode e.g. completing checklists or safety conversations.

The speed of our mind accelerates in Mind 2 as we work and learn over a period of time (through trial and error) to develop a range of processes called ‘heuristics’ or mental micro-rules.  The term ‘heuristics’ is referenced in HB327: 2010 (Communicating & Consulting About Risk), and enables humans to become more efficient as we gather new skills and become accustomed to what commences as ‘unfamiliar’ and with ongoing practice, becomes fast and frugal learning and action.  Whilst not fully in automatic, we are able to function much faster in this state.  Mind 2 is the experiential learning mind.

Mind 3 is exceedingly fast; processing information and exformation at approximately 10-11 billion bits/second.  This is where our intuition, ‘fight or flight’, ‘gut’ or ‘non rational’ thinking occurs, and is what scholars like John Bargh define as ‘automaticity’.  This is the type of thinking that enables us to act with intense speed and think later.  If a car is approaching you at speed as you step off the kerb, Mind 3 acts first without conscious intervention to move you out of the way of harm.  In this unconscious state, we are able to automate the majority of what we enact on a daily basis.

So the concepts of three minds and three speeds is nothing new. Yet, when it comes to the assessment and management of risk, human judgment and decision making, the idea of three minds remains largely ignored.  In safety generally, the idea of ‘risk management’ itself is understood as a technical and mechanistic process.

Research tells us a great deal about human ‘automaticity’.   Automaticity is when we make decisions and judgments by habits, in the ‘flow’, in the ‘zone’ or in a daydream. There are many ways we describe people’s judgments when they are functioning on automatic. Sometimes we lack the words and describe some judgments as simply ‘being emotional’. This happens sometimes when we are surprised by other’s judgments and decisions that don’t make sense to us.

Since cognitive researchers can factually demonstrate this, then why is it that safety disciplines actively choose to ignore these concepts and struggle with understanding how humans make decisions under pressure, stress or de-stress or what happens when we relax and function in automatic.  If we understand humans as fallible, then we would make better use of the systems we develop in order to manage risk.

One of the primary contributing factors to arational decision making is ‘flooding’.  This is when people get baffled by too much data, complex systems, unsolvable problems (wicked), excessive information and sensory stimulation. When we are flooded we tend to retreat to default mode. Sometimes we just ‘tick and flick’ checklists or, gloss over instructions or mentally become distracted or revert back to short-cuts. When people can’t cope, decision making becomes more arational and unconscious.

It is in the arational Minds 2 and 3 that people are ‘primed’ in their decision making. It is in Minds 2 and 3 that people work based on intuition, assumptions and heuristics; yet much of what we do to assess and manage risk is focused on the rational, systematic thinking of Mind 1.  Lack of understanding of the human unconscious decision making process in risk lends itself to embedding a system (rational) solution to a human (arational) conundrum.  If this is the case, we will continue to remain disconnected from risk. Evidence demonstrates that employees hurt themselves primarily in Minds 2 and 3, however management and safety systems tend to discipline the employee in Mind 1.  As much as we want people to make conscious decisions and be conscious of what they are doing when managing risk, it is inevitable that they will be working in automaticity.

How can we influence risk taking and all things safety, if we don’t understand how humans make judgments and decisions?  And furthermore, what does this mean for the management of uncertainty (risk)?

Dennis Millard and Dee Henshall

Reference: Dr Rob Long and related concepts