I recall arriving at a South African mining construction site. There in front of me, painted in huge letters on the water tower, was the phrase: “DON’T FEAR SAFETY.” How do people get to a point where they fear safety? How can something like a checklist or an SOP or a safety manager create fear?
Our body is equipped with automatic protective wiring that reacts to scary stimuli with a fear response. This fear reaction that can then be transferred otherwise neutral stimuli through experience. More than a century ago a guy named Watson took a baby he called “Little Albert” and exposed him to a mouse, which Albert played with and pleasantly giggled. Then out of the blue, Watson made loud startling noises behind Albert whenever he had the mouse, resulting in a crying baby. Afterward Albert would be fearful whenever he saw a mouse, a rabbit and even a stuffed fuzzy doll.