System 1 Thinking in Procedures?
Abdelsalam Yasseen
HSE Leader at Baker Hughes | Providing Practical Unconventional Solutions to Improve Safety Learning for Leaders and Frontline Workers
Still working on my thesis – a never ending task! Part of my literature review includes Systems 1 & System 2 by Kahneman (Thinking, fast and slow - a fascinating book by the way). The thought of how can we utilize the biases of system 1 in procedures is still puzzling me. The fact that system 1 is used automatically most of time only drive me to think of how we can make use out of it. One of the potential areas would be turn system 1 biases into our favor. Let’s take few examples:
- ‘Priming’: priming is about behaving – or sometimes just thinking – in a direction that was influenced by something else. Like when you read the word “blood” you can’t help but to think of something related to pain or injury. Can this be twisted for use in safety procedure? If I am reading a safety procedure about transportation, and the first thing I read is “remember, your body is not designed to survive a car crash” or maybe a picture of showing a vehicle crash. Will you consider your fragility when stepping behind the wheel more than you usually do?
- ‘Availability bias’: This bias will impact decision based on the available information. On the same example of transportation safety procedure, if we continually filled the procedure with facts such as “statistical fact#1: transportation is the number one killer in the oil and gas industry” or “statistical fact#2: you are more likely to have a vehicle accident that other activity at your lifetime”. Will that help keep the fear of vehicle accident fresh in your mind while driving?
- ‘Loss aversion’: Where are more likely to act in a manner to avoid loss than to seek gain. Maybe a PPE sign can start with “If you didn’t wear your gloves you might gain more time to finish faster, but also put you on a risk of losing your fingers and subsequently your job. Would you choose to avoid the gain or avoid the loss?”
Will these few examples impact how we perceive information in the document and keep the thought of safety longer in my mind?
Still searching for answers.
Drilling Services Sales & Commercial Lead | Well Construction
5 年Interesting.
Service Delivery - Directional Drilling
5 年If you find the answer please let me know
Engineering Consultant at Assiut National Oil Processing Company (ANOPC)
5 年Good job Abdelsalam. Keep up the good work.