Job Demands, Duty Status, and Accident Rates tor U.S. Navy Enlisted Personnel

Abstract

U.S. Navy occupations with high on-duty accident rates also tend to have high off-duty accident rates. This association has been interpreted as evidence that some occupations attract personnel whose personality profile includes greater than average risk taking. This paper compared this personality trait interpretation with an alternative occupational learning interpretation that assumed that on-duty exposure to risks can teach risk taking The evidence indicated that: (1) Occupational physical demands and reaction time demands predicted both on-duty and off-duty accident rates. (2) The partial correlation between on-duty and off-duty accident rates controlling for those two occupational demands was statistically nonsignificant. (3) A single factor model, such as that implied by the risk taking trait perspective, did not fit the data. The findings supported the view that occupational experiences are one basis for learning to take risks both on-duty and off duty.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1999
Accession Number
ADA370144

Entities

People

  • Linda K. Hervig
  • Ross R. Vickers

Organizations

  • Naval Health Research Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accidents
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Databases
  • Enlisted Personnel
  • Factor Analysis
  • Health
  • Health Services
  • Human Behavior
  • Information Processing
  • Information Science
  • Medical Personnel
  • Naval Personnel
  • Navy
  • Personality
  • Psychology
  • Reaction Time
  • Regression Analysis

Readers

  • Aviation Safety Risk Assessment.
  • Naval Personnel Management
  • Regression Analysis.