Jennifer Serne and Jeff Dalto : Cognitive Biases & Incident Investigations
Jennifer Serne of Central Washington University talks with Jeff Dalto of Convergence Training | Vector Solutions about cognitive biases and how they can influence incident investigations performed by safety professionals after an occupational safety and health incident.
One of a series of four related recorded discussions. The second, a direct companion to this recording, talks about guarding against cognitive biases in incident investigations. The third and fourth talk about how cognitive biases and other mental processes affect decision-making by employees.
Can investigations be done based on ‘foresight’, where the goal is to prevent an identified, unacceptable risk from materializing (perhaps from a risk assessment analysis like HAZOPs or FMEA’s)? In this scenario, hindsight bias takes on a new meaning, because hindsight would involve our experience with past events where the risk did materialize, but to prevent THIS risk from materializing, we would be employing our skills of foresight. Sorry if ambiguous, but thinking out loud as I blather on:-)