This is one of the most important questions never asked in the work of ‘human factors’.

If you want to know about the nature of the human person you won’t find this question in any safety text on ‘human factors’. Human factors are NOT about humans but about the design and ‘performance’ of systems. When ‘performance’ language is in any discourse on safety, you know that it’s all about measurement of processes and the efficiency of systems.

In ‘human factors’ the human is just a cog in a machine (https://safetyrisk.net/its-all-in-the-cogs-for-safety/).

The last thing ever studied in ‘human factors’ is the nature of being a fallible human embodied person.

Look at any text of human factors and you will quickly learn that it’s all about technical design, systems, productivity and ’performance’. No wonder traditional safety loves HOP so much. Whenever safety jumps at a fad, its essential to use the word ‘performance’ for success.

Indeed, most of the discourse and language, metaphors and symbols in human factors are about objects not subjects.

If you want to know how human persons think, act and live then go to sources in Anthropology, Sociology and Social Psychology, not texts in ‘human factors’.

It’s so fascinating to see traditional safety texts use the word ‘human’ (eg. Reason The Human Contribution; Dekker The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error), that have no discussion on the nature of being human!

If you actually want to understand the nature of the human person, start here:

• Benner, D., (2016) Human Being and Becoming.
• Bauer, J., Harteis, C., (Eds) (2012) Human Fallibility, The Ambiguity of Errors for Work and Learning.
• Coeckelbergh, M., (2013) Human Being @ Risk.
• Stables, A., (2012) Be(com)ing Human Semiosis and the Myth of Reason.

One of the reasons why we called our company Human Dymensions (https://www.humandymensions.com/) from the outset, was to counter the distortions, brutalism and traditions of ‘human factors’ mythology.

Humans are not like machines. Humans are not the sum of inputs and outputs. Humans do not process information like computers. Humans are NOT a factor in a system!

The other thing you will never hear in human factors is about the nature of personhood and the importance of moral/ethical meaning.

It’s very clear that when you understand humans as a cog in a machine, you can do whatever you want to them, just as long as you get maximum performance of the machine.

If you are interested in an alternative view that works that, humanises persons in the process of tackling risk then, you can start an introduction in SPoR. The free Introduction is here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/4233556

Or, download a free book or podcast: https://www.humandymensions.com/shop/

Or, attend a SPoR Conference: 15-19 Sept Canberra Australia or 4-6 February 2026 in Edinburgh Scotland.

In SPoR, our approach is the opposite of human factors.

•  We start by exploring the nature of fallible human personhood well before we consider the nature of work.
•  We believe that humans don’t serve systems but rather systems should be made to serve humans.
•  We understand ergonomics holistically NOT as making ‘the task to fit the human’.
•  We start by understanding human fallibility (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/fallibility-risk-living-uncertainty/) well before we consider the nature of systems.
•  We don’t frame our worldview by ‘performance’. Humans are not cogs in a machine. Rather, humans are fallible, learning persons in an ecological world where risk is a reality of daily living.