ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that neither simple linear thinking, nor complex linear thinking, suffice to describe the world around them. As part of the intellectual background for the Functional Resonance Analysis Method, the event-structure theory demonstrated that it was possible to account for behaviour without invoking cause-effect relations. Linear thinking is not only the idea that events happen one after another, but also that there is a cause-effect relationship between them. The shortcomings of simple linear thinking became commonly acknowledged in the late 1970s. It was found that serious events could happen even in relatively well-controlled work environments and that such events often involved multiple sequences occurring in series and in parallel. A proper understanding of safety could no longer rely on simple sequences of causes and effects as a way to explain past and future risks, but required a synthesis of technological, psychological, organisational, environmental and temporal factors.
