Safety Attitude as a Psychological Entity: Concept, Structure, and Assessment

Attitude is a category that can be applied to the study of safety-related mental activity. Safety attitude is a psychological entity that reflects mental activity associated with perceiving and experiencing danger. This attitude governs one’s safety behavior patterns. The model of safety attitude described in this article was verified on 454 different samples, including students, miners, cardiac patients, military officers, and security specialists. It consisted of attitude to danger and attitude to safety, represented as a variety of general (central) and particular (peripheral) attitudes unified in a single system. The empirical research yielded a set of descriptions of attitudes to danger and their phenomenology. The descriptions were generalized into categories of hazards to develop an assessment methodology. The resulting theoretical model received a number of empirical confirmations: 1. Safety is associated with specific mental content that consists of general and particular attitudes to danger and safety; they depend on one’s personality and profession. 2. Safety attitude consists of attitudes to danger and safety measures. 3. The general structure of safety attitude includes general and particular safety relations. 4. Particular attitudes to safety are called concerns; their structure includes ideas about the source of danger, its nature, and consequences. Safety attitude can be studied as a psychological entity that determines safe behavior that can be measured and studied.

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