Psychological Antecedents of Risk-Taking Behavior in Construction
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 140, Issue 11
Abstract
Despite strong advancements in construction safety performance over the past few decades, injuries still occur at an unacceptable rate. Researchers have shown that risk-taking behavior, originating mainly from inaccurate perception and unacceptable tolerance of safety risk, is a significant factor in a majority of construction injuries. Based on psychology research that suggests cognitive interactions between emotions and risk perception, the hypothesis was formed that there are objectively measureable differences in construction safety risk perception between people in different emotional states. To test this hypothesis, a controlled experiment was designed and conducted that (1) induced various positive and negative emotions in 69 subjects using validated movie excerpts; (2) measured emotional states using a validated post-film questionnaire; (3) exposed participants to construction hazards within a high fidelity virtual environment; and (4) measured subjects’ perceptions of the risk related to these hazards adopting a validated frequency-severity-based questionnaire. Once these data were collected, a principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to identify uncorrelated groups of related emotions. A Kruskal-Wallis test followed by multiple Mann-Whitney U tests was then used to test for differences in risk perception between participants belonging to these different emotional groups. The results of these analyses indicated that the mild negative group (sad and unhappy subjects) and the intense negative group (fearful, anxious, and disgusted subjects) perceived statistically significantly () more risk than the positive group (happy, amused, joyful, and interested subjects). The two negative groups were also found to perceive more risk than the neutral group (). However, no statistically significant difference in risk perception was found between the positive and neutral groups or between the two negative groups. According to situational awareness literature, the implication of these findings is that individuals in positive and neutral emotional states may be more prone to engage in risk-taking behaviors than their counterparts because they perceive less risk in the same environment.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Agarwal, P., and Everett, J. G. (1997). “Strategies for construction contractors to reduce workers’ compensation costs.” J. Manage. Eng., 70–75.
Artman, H. (2000). “Team situation assessment and information distribution.” Ergonomics, 43(8), 1111–1128.
Baradan, S., and Usmen, M. A. (2006). “Comparative injury and fatality risk analysis of building trades.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 533–539.
Bargh, J. A., and Ferguson, M. J. (2000). “Beyond behaviorism: The automaticity of higher mental processes.” Psychol. Bull., 126(6), 925–945.
Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., and Damasio, A. R. (1997). “Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy.” Science, 275(5304), 1293–1295.
Bonnet, A., et al. (2008). “Changes in emotional states before and after risk taking in scuba diving.” J. Clin. Sport Psychol., 2(1), 25–40.
Boyle, G. J. (1984). “Reliability and validity of izard’s differential emotions scale.” Personality and Individual Differences, 5(6), 747–750.
Bryant, F. B., and Yarnold, P. R. (1995). “Principal-components analysis and confirmatory factor analysis.” Reading and understanding multivariale statistics, L. G. Grimm and R. R. Yarnold, eds., American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2011). “Occupational injuries/illnesses and fatal injuries profiles.” 〈http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf〉 (Jul. 18, 2012).
Carter, G., and Smith, S. D. (2006). “Safety hazard identification on construction projects.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 197–205.
Cisler, J. M., Bacon, A. K., and Williams, N. L. (2009). “Phenomenological characteristics of attentional biases towards threat: A critical review.” Cognit. Ther. Res., 33(2), 221–234.
Clore, G. L., Schwarz, N., and Conway, M. (1994). “Affective causes and consequences of social information processing.” Handbook of social cognition, 2nd Ed., Vol. 1, R. S. Wyer and T. K. Srull, eds., Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 323–417.
Comrey, A. L., and Lee, H. B. (1992). A first course in factor analysis, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
Costello, A. B., and Osborne, J. W. (2005). “Best practices in exploratory factor analysis: Four recommendations for getting the most from your analysis.” Pract. Assess. Res. Eval., 10(7), 1–12.
Davis, M. J. (2010). “Contrast coding in multiple regression analysis: Strengths, weaknesses, and utility of popular coding structures.” J. Data Sci., 8(4), 61–73.
Drevets, W. C., and Raichle, M. E. (1998). “Reciprocal suppression of regional cerebral blood flow during emotional versus higher cognitive processes: Implications for interactions between emotion and cognition.” Cognit. Emotion, 12(3), 353–385.
Eisenberg, A. E., Baron, J., and Seligman, M. E. P. (1996). “Individual differences in risk aversion and anxiety.” 〈http://www.sas.upenn.edu/∼baron/papers.htm/amyold.html#5〉 (May 31, 2013).
Elfenbein, H. A., and Ambady, N. (2002). “Is there an in-group advantage in emotion recognition?” Psychol. Bull., 128(2), 243–249.
Endsley, M. R. (1995). “Measurement of situation awareness in dynamic systems.” Human Factors, 37(1), 65–84.
Field, A., Miles, J., and Field, Z. (2012). Discovering statistics using R, Sage Publications, New York.
Finucane, M. L., Alhakami, A., Slovic, P., and Johnson, S. M. (2000). “The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits.” J. Behav. Decis. Making, 13(1), 1–17.
Fitness, J., and Fletcher, G. J. O. (1993). “Love, hate, anger, and jealousy in close relationships: A prototype and cognitive appraisal analysis.” J. Personality Soc. Psychol., 65(5), 942–958 .
Garson, D. G. (2008). “Factor analysis: Statnotes.” North Carolina State University Public Administration Program, 〈http://www2.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/pa765/factor.htm〉 (Mar. 22, 2008).
Gilboa, E., and Revelle, W. (1994). “Personality and the structure of emotional responses.” Emotions: Essays on current issues in the field of emotion theory, S. Van Goozen, N. E. Van de Poll, and J. A. Sargent, eds., Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 135–159.
Gross, J. J., and Levenson, R. W. (1995). “Emotion elicitation using films.” Cognit. Emotion, 9(1), 87–108.
Hallowell, M., and Gambatese, J. A. (2008). “Quantification and communication of construction safety risk.” Evolution of and Directions in Construction Safety and Health, CIB W99 Working Commission Rinker Int. Conf., International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction.
Hallowell, M. R. (2010). “Safety risk perception in construction companies in the Pacific Northwest of the USA.” Constr. Manage. Econ., 28(4), 403–413.
Hallowell, M. R., Kleiner, B., Albert, A., and Duncan, J. (2013). “Strategies for safety and health hazard recognition.” Construction Industry Institute (CII) Research Team 293, Research Summary 293-1, Austin, TX.
Harmon-Jones, E., Amodio, D. M., and Zinner, L. R. (2007). “Social psychological methods in emotion elicitation.” Handbook of emotion elicitation and assessment, J. A. Coan and J. J. B. Allen, eds., Oxford University Press, New York, 91–105.
Hatcher, L. (1994). A step-by-step approach to using the SAS system for factor analysis and structural equation modeling, SAS Press, New York.
Hewig, J., Hagermann, D., Seifert, J., Gollwitzer, M., Naumann, E., and Bartussek, D. (2005). “A revised film set for the induction of basic emotions.” Cognit. Emotion, 19(7), 1095–1109.
Hinze, J. (2006). Construction safety, Prentice Hall, New York.
Howell, G. A., Ballard, G., Abdelhamid, T. S., and Mitropoulos, P. (2002). “Working near the edge: A new approach to construction safety.” Annual Conf. on Lean Construction, Vol. 10, Lean Construction Institute, 49–60.
Isen, A. M., and Patrick, R. (1983). “The effect of positive feelings on risk taking: When the chips are down.” Organiz. Behav. Human Perform., 31(2), 194–202.
Johnson, E. J., and Tversky, A. (1983). “Affect, generalization and the perception of risk.” J. Personality Soc. Psychol., 45(1), 20–31 .
Joliffe, I. (1986). Principal components analysis, Springer, London.
Karama, S., Jorge, A., and Mario, B. (2011). “Film excerpts shown to specifically elicit various affects lead to overlapping activation foci in a large set of symmetrical brain regions in males.” PLoS ONE, 6(7), 24–36.
Keller, C., Siegrist, M., and Gutscher, H. (2006). “The role of the affect and availability heuristics in risk communication.” Risk Anal., 26(3), 631–639.
Kim, J. O., and Mueller, C. W. (1978). Introduction to factor analysis: What it is and how to do it, Sage, Beverly Hills, CA.
Kline, P. (2002). An easy guide to factor analysis, Routledge, London.
LeDoux, J. E., ed. (1996). The emotional brain, Simon and Schuster, New York.
Loewenstein, G., Weber, E. U., Hsee, C. K., and Welch, N. (2001). “Risk as feelings.” Psychol. Bull., 127(2), 267–286.
Lynn, S. K., Xuan, Z., and Lisa, F. B. (2012). “Affective state influences perception by affecting decision parameters underlying bias and sensitivity.” Emotion, 12(4), 726–736.
MacCallum, R. C., Widaman, K. F., Preacher, K. J., and Hong, S. (2001). “Sample size in factor analysis: The role of model error.” Multivariate Behav. Res., 36(4), 611–637.
Massey, W. F. (1965). “Principal components regression in exploratory statistical research.” J. Am. Stat. Assoc., 60(309), 234–256.
Matsumoto, D. (1989). “Cultural influences on the perception of emotion.” J. Cross Cultural Psychol., 20(1), 92–105.
Muthén, B. (2004). “Latent variable analysis: Growth mixture modeling and related techniques for longitudinal data.” Handbook of quantitative methodology for the social sciences, D. Kaplan, ed., Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA, 345–368.
Muthén, B., and Kaplan, D. (1985). “A comparison of some methodologies for the factor analysis of non-normal Likert variables.” Br. J. Math. Stat. Psychol., 38(2), 171–189.
Norman, G. R., and Streiner, D. L. (2007). Biostatistics: The bare essentials, 3rd Ed., Decker, Hamilton, BC.
Nygren, T. E., Isen, A. M., Taylor, P. J., and Dulin, J. (1996). “The influence of positive affect on the decision rule in risk situations: Focus on outcome (and especially avoidance of loss) rather than probability.” Organiz. Behav. Human Decis. Processes, 66(1), 59–72.
Öhman, A., and Mineka, S. (2001). “Fear, phobias and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning.” Psychol. Rev., 108(3), 483–522.
Patrick, C. J. (1994). “Emotion and psychopathy: Startling new insights.” Psychophysiology, 31(4), 319–330.
Philippot, P., Gaëtane, C., and Sylvie, B. (2002). “Respiratory feedback in the generation of emotion.” Cognit. Emotion, 16(5), 605–627.
Preacher, K. J., and MacCallum, R. C. (2002). “Exploratory factor analysis in behavior genetics research: Factor recovery with small sample sizes.” Behav. Genet., 32(2), 153–161.
Ross, L., Mark, R. L., and Michael, H. (1975). “Perseverance in self-perception and social perception: Biased attributional processes in the debriefing paradigm.” J. Personality Soc. Psychol., 32(5), 880–892.
Rottenberg, J., Ray, R. R., and Gross, J. J. (2007). “Emotion elicitation using films.” The handbook of emotion elicitation and assessment, J. A. Coan and J. J. B. Allen, eds., Oxford University Press, New York, 9–28.
Russell, J. A. (1994). “Is there universal recognition of emotion from facial expression? A review of the cross-cultural studies.” Psychol. Bull., 115(1), 102–141.
Schaefer, A., et al. (2003). “Neural correlates of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ emotional processing: A multilevel approach to the functional anatomy of emotion.” NeuroImage, 18(4), 938–949.
Schaefer, A., Frédéric, N., Xavier, S., and Pierre, P. (2010). “Assessing the effectiveness of a large database of emotion-eliciting films: A new tool for emotion researchers.” Cognit. Emotion, 24(7), 1153–1172.
Schaefer, A., and Philippot, P. (2005). “Selective effects of emotion on the phenomenal characteristics of autobiographical memories.” Memory, 13(2), 148–160.
Schimmack, U. (2003). “Affect measurement in experience sampling research.” J. Happiness Stud., 4(1), 79–106.
Slater, M. (2009). “Place illusion and plausibility can lead to realistic behaviour in immersive virtual environments.” Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci., 364(1535), 3549–3557.
Slovic, P., Fishhoff, B., and Lichtenstein, S. (1980). “Facts and fears: Understanding perceived risk.” Societal risk assessment: How safe is safe enough?, W. A. Albers, ed., Plenum Press, New York.
Sonnemans, J., and Frijda, N. (1995). “The structure of subjective emotional intensity.” Cognit. Emotion, 8(4), 329–350.
Tabachnick, B. G., and Fidell, L. S. (2001). Using multivariate statistics, 4th Ed., Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA.
Tabachnick, B. G., and Fidell, L. S. (2007). Using multivariate statistics, 5th Ed., Pearson Allyn and Bacon, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Velten, E. (1968). “A laboratory task for induction of mood states.” Behav. Res. Ther., 6(4), 473–482.
Verduyn, P., Tuerlinckx, F., and Van Gorp, K. (2011). “Measuring the duration of emotional experience: The influence of actual duration and response format.” Qual. Quant., 59(2), 1–11.
Verduyn, P., Tuerlinckx, F., and Van Gorp, K. (2013). “Measuring the duration of emotional experience: The influence of actual duration and response format.” Qual. Quant., 47(5), 2557–2567.
Verduyn, P., Van Mechelen, I., Tuerlinckx, F., Meers, K., and Van Coillie, H. (2009). “Intensity profiles of emotional experience over time.” Cognit. Emotion, 23(7), 1427–1443.
von Leupoldt, A., Rohde, J., Beregova, A., Thordsen-Sorensen, I., Zur Nieden, J., and Dahme, B. (2007). “Films for eliciting emotional states in children.” Behav. Res. Meth., 39(3), 606–609.
Waehrer, G. M., Xiuwen, S. D., Ted, M., Elizabeth, H., and Yurong, M. (2007). “Costs of occupational injuries in construction in the United States.” Accid. Anal. Prev., 39(6), 1258–1266.
Wilson, T. D., Aronson, E., and Carlsmith, K. (2010). “The art of laboratory experimentation.” The handbook of social psychology, S. T. Fiske, et al., eds., 5th Ed., Wiley, New York, 70.
Yuen, K. S. L., and Lee, T. M. C. (2003). “Could mood state affect risk-taking decisions?” J. Affective Disorders, 75(1), 11–18.
Zimolong, B. (1985). “Hazard perception and risk estimation in accident causation.” Trends in ergonomics/human factors II, R. Eberts and C. Eberts, eds., Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 140 • Issue 11 • November 2014
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 19, 2013
Accepted: May 2, 2014
Published online: Jun 27, 2014
Published in print: Nov 1, 2014
Discussion open until: Nov 27, 2014
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.