Citation

Fischhoff B. Ind. Crisis Q. 1989; 3(3): 177-189.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1989, Industrial Crisis Institute - Bucknell University)

DOI

10.1177/108602668900300301

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Individuals create and prevent industrial crises. As a result, understanding their behavior is essential to anticipating, managing and avoiding such crises. Four approaches are described here for incorporating research regarding individual behavior into industrial design, one of which is elaborated in some de tail. That approach involves exploring the design implications of stylized facts extracted from the study of individuals. These "facts" include the tendency for people to be overconfident in the extent of their own knowledge (which has implications for the trustworthiness of risk analyses), the tendency to exaggerate in hindsight what could have been anticipated in foresight (which has implications for accident investigation), and the vagaries of laypeople's risk perceptions (which has implications for communication in both routine and emergency situations). The risks of using -- and of ignoring - this research are also discussed.