Response Covariation as a Design Consideration in Developing Workplace Safety Interventions

Abstract

Accidents are among the leading causes of death in the U.S. and billions of dollars are expended annually for treatment of injuries, insurance costs, lost work-time, and other related costs (Accident Facts, 1989). Recent applications of interventions employing incentives and feedback have been successful in increasing safety-related behavior, but they are often expensive to administer over extended periods of time and their effects are often transient. Non-reward strategies emphasizing participation and commitment show great promise since they compare favorably to reward programs in terms of effectiveness, are less costly to administer, and in general, show stronger maintenance of effects. However, most studies employing commitment procedures have targeted only a single behavior, thus reducing their potential effectiveness.

The notion of response classes suggests that certain safety behaviors may covary together and that interventions aimed at a single “target” behavior may also impact other “non-target” behaviors. The results of the present study show that safety glasses use (“target response”) increased following introduction of a pledgecard commitment intervention. A concomitant increase in safety belt use (“non-target response”) also occurred, although both safety behaviors eventually returned to baseline levels following termination of the intervention. The significance of these findings may prove valuable to the development of more efficient and cost-effective safety programs for promoting safety both on and off the job, especially when it is possible to predict collateral effects so that they may be promoted or prevented.