Why People Still Do Unsafe Things at Work — Even When They Know Better

A Neuro-Deterministic and Behavioural Systems View of Safety

By Rose Byass

^{“Behavior isn’t chosen. It unfolds.” — Robert Sapolsky, Determined (2023)}

No matter how many policies we laminate, how many safety inductions we deliver, how many “R U OK?” barbeques we host, or how much PPE we hand out, people still bypass safety steps, take shortcuts, hide fatigue, or keep working when unwell. This isn’t because they don’t care.

It’s because human behaviour is not primarily driven by knowledge. It is driven by biology, reinforcement history, social context, psychological safety, fatigue, environmental design, and real or perceived consequences. This is where Professor Robert Sapolsky’s neuro-determinism intersects with behavioural safety, organisational psychology, and safety system design:

The decision to make an unsafe choice wasn’t born in that moment — it was shaped by everything that happened before it: life experience, stress load, social cues, fear, habit, cognitive overload, fatigue, and the systems we built around the person.

Sapolsky argues that free will is largely an illusion, and what we call “choices” are actually brain outputs based on prior causes. In organisational safety, this means…

We must stop seeing unsafe acts as worker failings — and start seeing them as system outputs.

🔎 Why Workers Do Unsafe Things — Even When They "Know Better"

Behavioural science calls them behavioural excesses and behavioural defaults. Sapolsky would call them determined outcomes. Leaders like Sidney Dekker and James Reason call them normal violations:

People don’t violate rules because they are reckless —
they violate rules because the system reinforces it, or makes compliance difficult.

Reasons people act unsafely — even when trained not to:

Table 1

How unsafe behaviour shows up

🧠 What Neuroscience Says About Safety Behaviour

According to Sapolsky, behaviour is not chosen freely — it is the result of prior neurobiological events.When under stress, pressure, or fatigue:

• The amygdala activates (threat detection)
• The prefrontal cortex (PFC) — responsible for planning, judgement, ethics and compliance — is suppressed
• The HPA axis releases adrenaline and cortisol, causing tunnel vision and instinctive actions
• Cognitive capacity, risk evaluation, empathy, and procedural thinking drop sharply

This is why unsafe work behaviour is most common when stress, time pressure, or fatigue is present.Sidney Dekker explains:

“What we call human error is often the result of normal people trying to meet system goals under difficult conditions.”

🔄 Sapolsky, Behavourial Science & Safety Systems — Where They Meet

Table 2

Traditional safety v. neuro safety

💡 A More Accurate (and Humane) View:

Unsafe behaviour is not worker failure. It is system feedback.

This aligns with:

• James Reason’s Swiss Cheese Model — multiple latent organisational failures before human behaviour occurs
• Karl Weick’s Collective Mindfulness — high reliability depends on awareness, not blame
• Scott Geller’s Actively Caring for People (AC4P) — behaviour improves where connection and accountability exist
• Amy Edmondson’s Psychological Safety — people only behave safely when they feel safe to speak up

🧭 So How Do We Design Safety the Neuro-Smart Way?

🔹 1. Design For Real Brains — Not Ideal Workers

Make safety the easiest, not just the right, way to behave.

✔ Simplify procedures

✔ Reduce cognitive load (especially for tired brains)

✔ Use visual cues, habit design, and safety triggers

🔹 2. Audit Reinforcement — Not Just Compliance

Ask deeper questions:

Table 3

Neuro smart questions

🔹 3. Prioritise Psychological Safety as a Core Safety Control

Amy Edmondson’s research shows:

Teams with high psychological safety report more incidents — but have fewer serious accidents.

Why? Because they speak up before harm occurs.

🔹 4. Change Safety Leadership from Policing → Sensemaking

Leaders should not ask:🚫 “Who’s at fault?”

✔ “What conditions produced this behaviour?”This is how we move from worker blaming to organisational learning.

🔹 5. Use Determinism to Design Better Workplaces

Sapolsky’s determinism gives leaders a powerful insight:

"If people’s behaviour is shaped by values, cues, pressure, safety climate, and past reinforcement —
then organisations can intentionally shape these conditions to shift behaviour.”

In short:

We can’t change human nature.

But we can change human behaviour —

by changing what the environment reinforces, tolerates, and rewards.

🚀 Final Thought — The Future of Safety is Neuro-Operational, Not Rule-Based

Compliance alone cannot prevent unsafe behaviour.

Behaviour isn't controlled by documents — it is shaped by conditions.🧠 Safety must be:

Table 4

Neuro informed view

The safest organisations will be those that understand not just what people do — but why their brains are wired to do it.

Robust Leaders

Neuroscience. Governance. Human Behaviour. Safety Reinvented.

#neurosafety #Safety# Robert Sapolsky Determined