Human reliability from a social-psychological perspective

Human reliability is usually investigated either from a technical perspective, in terms of probability models, or from a general psychological perspective using information processing or decision models. Both approaches view human actions at the level of the individual. Based on a re-analysis of 100 accidents at sea (Wagenaar & Groeneweg, 1987), it is shown that focusing solely on the individual, or an aggregation of several individuals, has severe shortcomings. The statistical analysis reveals that the individualsʹ contributions are not mutually independent; rather, they seem to be affected by social interactions manifested in the two-person case. These results may be explained by theories of social influence.