We know that positive reinforcement is far more powerful than negative reinforcement. We say someone has received positive reinforcement if a desired behaviour they display has been followed with a reward or stimulus. Negative reinforcement is when someone receives punishment, an aversive stimulus or a withholding of a stimulus after displaying certain behaviour, usually undesirable behaviour.
People are more likely to adjust their behaviour to seek out praise and acceptance than out of fear of punishment.
We understand this well in our private lives. When people do things we like, we reward them with expressions of gratitude so that such behaviour is repeated. We avoid rewarding people for negative or undesired behaviour but, with few exceptions, punishment of people for such behaviour will rarely be effective. Harsh words directed at a fellow motorist who cuts you off on the road are unlikely to alter their driving behaviour. That is because they receive an immediate reward for their bad behaviour in reaching their destination sooner, and the added attention received from you as a fellow motorist, over time, is either ignored or becomes associated with the positive reward -beating traffic. At work, people do their jobs well every day. They follow safety procedures. They engage in safety programs required of them. For that, we seem to think they deserve no reward or recognition. Indeed, people strongly believe that it is wrong to reward them for "doing their job" as if to single out that conduct would undermine the integration of safety into operational requirements. By contrast, if they take a short cut, they are rewarded immediately by being able to do their job faster and, depending on the employment terms, either going home sooner, being recognised by their superiors or, in the case of contractors, making more money. Yet we are surprised when, over time, people gravitate towards short cuts. The same is true of managers. Beyond a certain threshold, improved productivity with no additional innovation or capital expenditure comes at the cost of the health and safety of workers. But no such distinction is made in relation to managerial recognition and reward. Managers receive instant positive reinforcement for day-to-day decisions they make which improve shareholder value, such as staff reductions and productivity improvements. Doing more with less has become a management mantra -a boast of success. That assumes that the status quo has inefficiencies. But where no such buffers exist, the value is derived at the long–term expense of current workers and future shareholders. That was the experience of the BP Texas Refinery.
The value of near miss investigation as an examination of success
Given what we know about human behaviour and psychology, it is remarkable that when a near miss occurs, we don't pause to recognise the positive behaviour exhibited by people that may have averted a disaster. That behaviour may well be expected because it is consistent with the system, but so are many everyday private behaviours for which we receive an acknowledgement or other positive reaction. As a society we expect that positive reinforcement in our private lives. We regard it as part of our culture. We drum it into our children. But in our working lives we seem to take safe behaviour for
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