The Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) is founded on an Existentialist Phenomenological Christian Dialectic. This has been explained in many publications and resources and what this means. Such a declaration is critical for transparency and ethics in SPoR. However, what this means requires some philosophical knowledge or a wiliness to ask and engage with what is outside one’s worldview.

One of the key influences on SPoR is the philosophy of Phenomenology. Phenomenology is a philosophy/worldview very different than is common in Safety Culture which is dominated by Behaviourism and Cognitivism. To learn more about Phenomenology see here:

In SPoR, we don’t look at persons as if they are some computer-like being nor, do we view persons as the sum of inputs and outputs. Rather than focus on systems, Phenomenology has a focus on persons in daily living and being.

In Phenomenology, we look at the world through the phenomenon of being-in-the-world, experience and consciousness. What this means is, we focus on lived experience, consciousness and experience in the everyday.

Consciousness is always about what one is conscious of. This means we are aware of what and who we are oriented towards. This also means that you and I can be looking at the same thing, environment and person yet see two completely different things. This is why the psychology and phenomenology of perception is foundational to SPoR.

Phenomenology calls into question the idea that one can be detached from being as asserted by Cartesian dualism. It is a myth of Safety that one can stand back and be objective about a matter. Indeed, the idea that there is any separation between body and mind is rejected by Phenomenology. The brain does not direct the body any more than the body directs the brain. In Phenomenology, the focus is on the balance in being as whole persons. The person is the Mind not the brain. This is the foundation for Enactivism (https://safetyrisk.net/guide-enactivism-risk/) that we have been studying recently. This balance changes the whole way we understand why people do what they do. And, what to do about it.

The reason why SPoR is in disagreement with the dominant worldviews in safety is not because of some odd desire to be oppositional. The founding philosophy of SPoR doesn’t see the world as is common in Safety.

There should be little problem in having a different worldview within a discipline such as safety but, in the compliance driven worldview, this is a problem. It is also why Safety continues going to the same comfortable sources looking for inspiration, innovation, imagination and creativity, where there is none. There can be no new methods without a new worldview and at the moment I see no new worldview in safety on the horizon.

Phenomenology provides a deep perspective on the nature of reality. The task of Phenomenology is to bring to the surface the ideas, assumptions and implicit pre-suppositions of behaviour and experience.

Phenomenology is able to tackle subjects that don’t necessarily fit in a scientific investigation. Eg. the lived experience of pain, happiness, consciousness, desire, hope, suffering, being, living, love and the phenomenon of learning. Phenomenology has little interest in the way of disembodiment or the entertainment/exceptionalism of gurus and heroes. Phenomenology is much more interested in being-in-the-world and understanding persons as learners-in-the-world.

We see this Phenomenological focus in Everyday Social Resilience, Being in Risk (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/everyday-social-resilience-being-in-risk/) where SPoR has a focus away from systems and the semiotics of self-empowerment. This is why the meaning of History in SPoR is anchored to a History of Mentalities (Annales History).

Zinn and Schulz (2026) in their book A New Phenomenology of Risk and Uncertainty, bring to the surface just how we should approach and tackle risk. In the book they discuss what they call the ‘in-between’ modes of engaging in risk. Rather than focus on the endless call of Safety to make systems perfect, Zinn and Schulz argue that we should look at what people actually do to tackle risk.

Much of what people do is NOT anchored to science, rationality, cognitivism or engineering when faced with risk. Rather, people in the everyday respond to risk with emotional, non-rational, intuitive, faith and ideological approaches. Indeed, to dismiss such approaches demonstrates that Safety has lost connection with the nature of personhood and how people in their everyday lives understand risk. In SPoR, it is primacy on the person and ethics that explains why people do as they do. In the face of risk, many people don’t find assurance or comfort in the rationalist promises of science and systems. We saw this evidenced in how people responded to the risks of COVID.

Zinn and Schulz provide a neat example of how risk is managed in reality:

What this model shows is just how much the way humans tackle risk is a dance between these three domains. This Phenomenological approach is how SPoR understands risk.

Risk and the consciousness of risk, is unique to the fallibility of human persons (and all the ecology). Indeed, the discourse of eliminating risk that is common in the safety is cultic as it seeks to quash the meaning of what it is to be human. The desire for zero is also the desire to be non-human.

Risk is essential to living, being and learning and will never be eliminated as is proposed in the fixation by Safety on the Hierarchy of Controls (HoC). We see the same fixation in the Bradley Curve and The Ideology of Zero (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/zero-the-great-safety-delusion/). From a religious point of view these models and symbols have been made sacred by Safety as if the elimination of risk is a moral good.

Now, with the help of AI, we see more and more fixation the elimination of risk as saviour symbolised in the HoC and the Bradley Curve. It is as if the more complex the symbol the more salvation is attributed to the symbol. The following are two examples:

Whilst Safety may love this stuff, look at the core messaging. Many of the statements in this graphic are extremist. The language used humanises the word ‘hazard’ and then asserts that elimination is a ‘real life’ application. There is no elimination of risk in real life. Such is the psychosis of Safety and its obsession with injury rates.

When we know that risk is phenomenal and essential for living and being we don’t make the HoC sacred. Nor, is there any consolation in concoctions like the Bradley Curve or Heinrich’s Pyramid. Such semiotic models are anchored to non-reality and the fictional world of safety.

There are much better models, symbols and alternatives that work and embrace risk as it should be tackled. Download them here: https://spor.com.au/downloads/tools/