Culture and safety culture: Individual and collective attitudes

This paper deals with some of the recommendations made in INSAG-4, those placing most importance on certain individual and collective attitudes important for safety. The modest bibliography which begins this communication, places these attitudes into a wider context which must be accounted for if effective safety measures are to take care of the irrational or non-Cartesian side of our actions, communication activities and thoughts. The purpose is to provide a fuller description of the ways in which people ensure safety by focusing on their know-how, the communication activities needed for their activity and the learned and unconscious mechanisms governing the actions determined by the temporal and organizational context in which these people find themselves. Similarly, the validity of their final judgement on the quality of the installation and the availability of the safeguard systems depends on the methods used to transfer and compile information. Knowledge of the transfer methods and the points at which the information becomes blocked could be helpful. (author)