ABSTRACT

This succinct but absorbing book covers the main way stations on James Reason’s 40-year journey in pursuit of the nature and varieties of human error. In it he presents an engrossing and very personal perspective, offering the reader exceptional insights, wisdom and wit as only James Reason can. The journey begins with a bizarre absent-minded action slip committed by Professor Reason in the early 1970s - putting cat food into the teapot - and continues up to the present day, conveying his unique perceptions into a variety of major accidents that have shaped his thinking about unsafe acts and latent conditions. A Life in Error charts the development of his seminal and hugely influential work from its original focus into individual cognitive psychology through the broadening of scope to embrace social, organizational and systemic issues. The voyage recounted is both hugely entertaining and educational, imparting a real sense of how James Reason’s ground-breaking theories changed the way we think about human error, and why he is held in such esteem around the world wherever humans interact with technological systems. This book is essential reading for students, academics and safety professionals of all kinds who are interested in avoiding breakdowns that can cause serious damage to people, assets and the environment.

chapter 1|6 pages

A Bizarre Beginning

chapter 2|6 pages

Plans, Actions and Consequences

chapter 3|6 pages

Three Performance Levels

chapter 4|8 pages

Absent-Minded Slips and Lapses

chapter 5|10 pages

Individual Differences

chapter 6|8 pages

A Courtroom Application of the SIML

chapter 7|8 pages

The Freudian Slip Revisited

chapter 8|10 pages

Planning Failures

chapter 9|10 pages

Violations

chapter 10|8 pages

Organizational Accidents

chapter 11|14 pages

Organizational Culture: Resisting Change

chapter 12|10 pages

Medical Error

chapter 13|12 pages

Disclosing Error

chapter 14|6 pages

Reviewing the Journey