Psychological climate in occupational safety and health: the safety awareness of construction workers in South China

Abstract

The number of accidents on construction sites has been depressingly high in the last 10 years. A broad variety of safety measures have been implemented on sites, such as encouraging workers to put on personal protective equipment and launching regular safety toolboxes. This has tended to strengthen safety awareness and improved compliance with safety regulations. The study of discrepancies in psychological climate among workers and how psychological climate interacts with external factors thus plays a prime role in understanding safety. This paper examines external factors with psychological climate that the workers possess on their safety awareness. A questionnaire survey was conducted in the construction industry in South China (Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau). A research hypothesis model is thus developed for understanding the interrelationship among parameters with respect to workers' psychological conditions. It emerged that two external factors ‒ physical working environment and social influence ‒ affect psychological conditions, whereas negative affectivity, risk-taking tendency and perceived utility of safety measures affect the safety awareness of the workers. Of these, the physical working environment has the strongest influence on negative affectivity and the perceived usefulness of safety measures has the strongest influence on safety awareness.