Alan Searle Consultancy Limited

Alan Searle MBPsSBehavioural Psychologist

www.alansearleconsultancy.co.uk

Human Factors

What’s the plan....We are going to talk about us..... Yes the

individual.....

The focus will be on Perception Personality Behaviour

To help understand how we are key to health and safety at work through Human Factors

First task of the talk Get into groups around your table

You need 2 lists:

Write a list about what makes a good day from the moment you wake up in the morning to the first 10 minutes getting into work

Now write a list of what makes a bad day!

Explore the Individual

Perception and Personality1. What is perception?2. What causes people to have different

perceptions of the same situation?3. Can people be mistaken in their

perceptions?4. What is personality and how does it

affect behaviour?

PerceptionWhat Is Perception?– The process by which individuals organize and

interpret their impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.

Why Is It Important?– Because people’s behaviour is based on their

perception of what reality is, not on reality itself. – The world as it is perceived is the world that is

behaviourally important.– The attribution process guides our behaviour,

regardless of the truth of the situation.

Basic Principles of Sensation and Perception

Sensation is the process that detects stimulation from our bodies and our environment.

Perception is the process that organizes those stimuli into meaningful objects and events and interprets them. It includes cognition as a process of thinking involving learning and remembering, generalising, feeling and attitude formation, liking and disliking.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

What do you see?

Cognitive Psychology: Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience, 2nd Ed. by Bruce Goldstein. Copyright © 2008 by Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Thomson Learning. All rights reserved.

The Forest Has Eyes

What do you see?

Now what do you see?

Information about the environment through senses

Sorting of information and grouping

Organize informationand compare with previous

Real Environment

Perceived environment alters behaviour

Perceptual Errors in Human BiasSelective Perception– People selectively interpret what they see based on

their interests, background, experience, and attitudes.Halo Effect– Drawing a general impression about an individual

based on a single characteristic (could be good or bad).Stereotyping– Judging someone on the basis of your perception of

the group to which that person belongs.Prejudice– An unfounded dislike of a person or group based on

their belonging to a particular stereotyped group.

Why Do Perceptions and Judgment Matter?

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy–A concept that proposes a person will

behave in ways consistent with how he or she is perceived by others.

PersonalityThe sum total of ways in which an individual reacts

and interacts with others.

Personality Determinants– Hereditary– Environmental Factors– Situational Conditions

Personality Traits– Enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s

behaviour.• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)• The Big Five Model

Who are you?

Take a moment to think of 2 words that you would use to describe yourself to someone you have not met before...

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

One of the most widely used self-report inventories

Based upon Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung’s (1875-1961) notion of psychological types in individual behaviour

He believed that differences between people are not random, instead they form patterns – types

The MBTI was further developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katherine Cook Briggs in 1943 – present day

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Measures your preferences on four different scales

The MBTI Connection

Your PREFERRED hand - sign you name 4 times Feels natural, you didn’t think about it, it was

effortless, looks neat and legible

Your NONPREFERRED hand – sign your name 4 times

Feels unnatural, had to concentrate, was awkward, looks childlike

Why do we use it?Knowing your preferences could enable you to

understand yourself and better understand people around you!!!

What is the Big Five?Personality Traits or Personality Dimensions

Individual differences in social and emotional life organized into a five-factor model of personality

“broad abstract level and each dimension summarized a larger number of … personality characteristics” (Oliver & Srivastava, 1999)

Where did the Big Five come from? Most of the socially relevant and salient personality

characteristics have become encoded in the natural language.

Allport & Odbert (1936): 18,000 terms, identified 4 categories

Cattell (1943) : broke 18,000 down to subset of 4,500 trait terms, then down to 35

Tupes & Christal (1961) through analysis found five factors

Today, many researchers believe that they are five core personality traits McCrae & Costa (1987) have really led the way in recent times

The Big Five ModelClassifications–Openness to Experience–Conscientiousness– Extraversion–Agreeableness–Neuroticism / Emotional Stability

Scoring The Big 5......1 2 3 4 5

5 4 3 2 1

Reverse scoring

Questions, scoring and results.....1, 6R, 11, 16, 21R, 26, 31R, 362 2 2 4 4 4 3 3 Your score2 4 2 4 2 4 3 3 Actual score

Big Five Personality Factors

Self-MonitoringThe ability for the individual to adjust

behaviour to external situational factors accordingly.

Reflection and a theory by Schön (1983) describes two types of reflection.–In-action –On-action

Negative Workplace EmotionsNegative emotions can lead to

negative workplace behaviours: –Production (leaving early, intentionally

working slowly)–Property (stealing, sabotage)–Political (gossiping, blaming co-workers)–Personal aggression (verbal abuse)

Proactive PersonalityA person who identifies opportunities,

shows initiative, takes action, and perseveres until meaningful change occurs.

This is just a taste of how health and safety in the workplace can be addressed by using behavioural psychology to support the individual and the organisation.

Thank you