Transcript ROPS and Seat Belts for Family Farm Tractors

Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches to
Farm Community Safety Education
Henry P. Cole
University of Kentucky
Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and
Injury Prevention
Paper presented at the “An Agricultural Safety and Health Conference:
Using Past and Present to Map the Future”
Baltimore, Maryland, February 2 - 4, 2001
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An educational problem
“…educational programs for delivering this [farm health and
safety] knowledge are low in number and often of
questionable effect.” (Agriculture at Risk ,1989. p. 5)
“It often seems as though relatively little has been
accomplished through the years with safety and health
education in production agriculture. … the nature of
production agriculture, and current social, political, and
economic realities, suggest that safety and health education
will remain a favored methodology for the foreseeable
future.” Murphy, 1992, p. 144.)
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Enforcement has its problems too
“…many production agriculture safety and health
regulations directed toward individual behavior are nothing
more than educational behavioral guidelines.” (p. 167)
“These instructions ignore individual working contingencies
that influence actual behavior by individuals in specific
situations.” (p. 167)
“Attention, then, must be focused on the question of how
safety and health education might do a better job for
production agriculture.” (pp. 144-145)
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Three theories of learning
Behaviorism & habits - 1900 to 1960
• Learning as response strengthening
Constructivism - 1960 to 1990
• Learning as acquiring and organizing
information
Socioculturalism - 1970 - present
• Learning is situated in the practice and
tools of social groups working together on
everyday task, sometimes called JPF
learning
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The A, B, C model
Antecedents - things people can see, hear, feel
remember that cue a particular behavior
Behavior - actions exhibited in the presence of
antecedent stimuli
Consequences - outcomes or effects of
behavior (behaviors that result in desirable
outcomes are said to be reinforced and
become habits)
A
B
C
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Two tales about the A-B-C model
The man who ate too many donuts
• Short term and long term reinforcers
• Competition among reinforcers
• Why fear of punishment usually fails
The farmer who ran his equipment
without shields (machine guards)
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What maintains safety behavior?
Driving a tractor with a ROPS and
wearing the seat belt is very rarely
reinforced by being protected during an
overturn.
What, then, reinforces a farmer for always
driving a ROPS-equipped tractor and
always wearing the seat belt?
Is it fear of injury? (No it is not!)
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Information processing theory
The computer metaphor - human brains
are like computers, they receive,
process, store, organize and act on
information.
Constructivism - Humans unlike
computers receive, manipulate, and use
information to construct meaning and to
create knowledge and purpose.
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Theory of reasoned action
The person's beliefs that
the behavior leads to
certain outcomes and his
evaluation of these
outcomes
Attitude toward
the behavior
Relative importance of
attitudinal and
normative cons iderations
The person's beliefs that
s pecific individuals or
groups think he s hould
perform the behavior and
his motivation to comply
with the specific referents
Intentions
Behavior
Subjective
norms
Social psychological theories like these are information processing
theories. They describe how beliefs, knowledge, attitudes,
motivations, and perceptions of other’s values result in intentions
and behaviors. The focus on what goes on inside a person’s head.
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The EPPM model
An information processing model that describe how
people process “fear messages” and either act to
avoid the threat or deny the threat. The choice is
determined by the person’s
 Perception of his or her
• Susceptibility to the injury
• The severity of the injury

The person’s belief in
• His or her self efficacy (ability to control outcomes)
• Response efficacy (effectiveness of the recommended
method for reducing risk and severity of injury)

Example: How farmers deal with news about tractor
overturn fatalities and injuries
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Socioculturalism
Learning occurs in the practice of just
plain folks engaged in the ordinary task of
life and work where each person has a
legitimate role and contribution in shared
common goals
Originated in studies of the real-world
social cooperative practices of trades and
professionals and how they create and
use knowledge effectively
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Instructional approach
“Educators can best support worker actions by
working within their organizations to develop
institutional structures which can respond to issues
identified...”
“… efforts to increase commitment to organizational
safety should be oriented from within communities of
practice by actions that personally involve their
members and make safety a part of their
professionalism, not an obligation imposed from
outside.”
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An important question
Where do safety beliefs, attitudes, knowledge,
behavior and strategies reside?”
Three Answers
Behaviorists - in individual’s habitual behaviors
(forget about attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge)
Constructivists - in individual’s heads as organized
beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, skills, and strategies
Socioculuralists - in the communal everyday
practices of just plain folks and their tools as they
engage in purposeful social efforts in which each
member has a legitimate role and contribution
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Stories to live by: An integration
How narrative influences and guides behavior
culture tales
attitudes
stories
heard
beliefs
knowledge
conduct
effects
stories
lived
goals
actions
outcomes
plans
stories
told
behavior
consequences
judgments
Conduct
Consequences
culture tales
Culture
decisions
Cognition
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A case example
This farmer drove an
average of three times a
day, 20 days per month
for 25 years and never
had an overturn during
18,000 tractor driving
events. He knows people
who died in overturns. He
believes that in an
overturn a ROPS and a
seat belt provide great
protection. But he says,
“ROPS are not worth the
cost and effort.”
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The overturn event
During his 26th year of farming the farmer overturns his
tractor and becomes a paraplegic. Thereafter he insists that
his tractors be fitted with ROPS and seat belts to protect his
wife and other family members.
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Interpretations of his behavior
Behavioristic - he was reinforced for driving
tractors without ROPS and seat belts
Constructivist - he constructed meaningful
representations of the relative risk of
overturns and his ability to prevent these
events
Socioculturalist - the culture tales in his
community presented stories that he lived
by (and nearly died by too).
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Another case
Many habits,
conceptions and
culture tales in farm
communities promote
the virtues of child
second riders.
Few address the risks
and consequences
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Another death
When child second
riders fall from tractors
and die, how are these
events usually treated
in local rural
newspapers and why?
What is required to
change these culture
tales and who must do
so?
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