Those who subscribe to the school of thought known as behavioral safety agree that the key to making individuals safe is having them develop and exercise safe habits at home and on the job. But many disagree about how to accomplish that goal. There are two competing approaches. The "cognitivists" say change people's attitudes, beliefs and values and they will change their behavior. The "behavioralists" say begin by changing people's safety-related behaviors and once the behaviors become habitual their attitudes and values may also change.

What we have here, then, is the classic "chicken or the egg" dilemma. Which comes first, the behavior or the attitude?

In the coming weeks, I will analyze this debate and present what I see as the resolution. I will argue that like the old nature vs. nurture controversy about the relative importance of heredity and experience, the answer to attitude vs. behavior is a bit of both. Finally, I will outline a holistic approach that incorporates aspects of both theories and suggest ways to apply the approach to your own organization.

The Cognitive View

Let me start out by explaining the competing views and the differences between them. This will be a fairly simple and straightforward analysis. For a more thorough and detailed discussion, see an article I wrote on this subject for Occupational Health & Safety Magazine in 1999 (Topf, "Chicken/Egg/Chegg! The merits of a holistic, integrated approach vs. a behavior-based approach, to create lasting change in unsafe attitudes and behaviors," OHS Magazine, July 1999).

The cognitive approach to safety stresses strategies for thinking, problem solving and the way individuals learn. Training is designed to influence perception and our ability to pay attention. In simple terms, cognitivists believe people can learn to "think safely." They also believe that to stay safe, people need skills to help them pay attention to a task and the dangers associated with it, and that people can be taught to develop these skills.

An Assessment

I am not trying to say that the cognitive approach is a simple panacea that will immediately change every person's unsafe attitudes, beliefs and behaviors to safe ones for ever. But, when coupled with a number of other methodologies, the cognitive approach provides the foundation for the most effective behavioral change intervention that allows for individuals to take responsibility for their own behavior and the behavior of others on a short- and long-term basis. We will explore how these behaviors weave together later in this series.

Next week, in Part 2 of this series, Mr. Topf discusses the behavioralists' approach to safety.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SAFETY RAZOR

Napoleon survived many a close shave before meeting his Waterloo.

For thousands of years, the grooming rituals of men and women have included the removal of facial and body hair. Prehistoric man reportedly used burning twigs to singe facial hair; Julius Caesar was among the first to use tweezers; and women across the ages have used all kinds of strange devices, including bat's blood and she-goat gall.

The razor, though, has evolved as the tool of choice for facial and body hair removal. Unfortunately, it hasn't necessarily been the safest tool - especially when entrusted to a barber. In the Middle Ages, visitors to the barber expected shaves to be too close for comfort. Barbers expected it too. So they had ready-made soothing plasters of special ointment and spider webs to heal customers' wounds.

In the 18 th century, French barber Jean-Jacques Perret resolved to find a better way, a safer way, to shave. In his 1771 treatise, The Art of Learning to Shave Oneself, Perret proposed a safety razor that used an L-shaped wooden guard to hold the blade in place, preventing it from cutting too deeply into the skin. The product was found to be lacking, but it was a start. Nearly 100 years later, the hoe-type razor was invented, which provided the user more control.

King Camp Gillette is thought of as the father of the modern safety razor. In fact, though, the safety razor was invented by the American Kampfe brothers in 1880. They took the hoe-type razor a crucial step forward by placing a wire skin guard down the side, thereby combining control with usability. Thus was born the modern safety razor. Talk about cutting edge.

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