ABSTRACT
Studies of accidents have mainly focused on personality factors. In Japan, Yuzaburo Uchida developed the Uchida-Kraepelin test by using a test by E.Kraepelin, a German psychomedical scientist, and it has been widely utilised in industrial circles (Misumi, Shirakashi, Ando, and Kurokawa, 1961). Also, Japanese industries have since devised various kinds of accident prevention methods and have translated them into practical applications. One concrete example is the system developed by the Labour Research Institute of the National Railroad Corporation. It is called
‘pointing a finger and calling out’, whereby a railroad employee points a forefinger at a thing to confirm its safety, while saying aloud such phrases as, ‘The switch is all right’ or ‘The speed is all right’. These words are selfdirected only in order to cause a state of self-arousal, which, in turn, contributes to action prevention. We have been engaged in a series of studies on accident prevention, combining the experiments on leadership and group decision-making that were originally initiated by Kurt Lewin. This research focuses on group dynamics for accident prevention. In some cases, accidents involving only individuals occur, but in many cases accidents happen in the course of group activities or in connection with organisational life. Accidents at nuclear power plants occur in the form of incidents within an organisation. It was in those studies conducted by Kurt Lewin and his disciples that human behaviour was proved to be closely related to an organisation’s social climate. It was in that context that Kurt Lewin came to develop his point of view of group dynamics.
