ABSTRACT
"Human error" is cited over and over again as a major contributing factor or "cause" of incidents. Most people accept the term human error as one category of potential causes for unsatisfactory activities or outcomes. Human error as a cause of bad outcomes is used in engineering approaches to the reliability of complex systems and is widely cited as a basic category in incident reporting systems in a variety of industries. The result is the widespread perception of a "human error problem." Incidents attributed to human error then become indicators that the human element is unreliable. The label "human error" is very controversial. Studies in a variety of fields show that the label "human error" is prejudicial and unspecific. The misconceptions and controversies on human error in all kinds of industries are rooted in the collision of two mutually exclusive world views. These folk models, which regard "human error" as the cause of accidents, mislead us.
