The effects of personality types on self-reported safety behavior: Focused on plant workers in Korea

We sought to validate a safety behavior tool used in South Korean nuclear power plants, and to investigate the effects of HEXACO personality types on safety behaviors. The participants were 242 individuals employed in corporate safety management who answered the questionnaires on safety behaviors checklist, impulsiveness, affectivity, job burnout, and perfectionism. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the safety behavior items, and the convergent and discriminant validity were confirmed through correlational analyses with the existing related variables. To examine the individual effects of personality variables on the validated safety behavior questionnaire, we introduced control variables into a subsequent hierarchical regression analysis. The analyses revealed that the personality variables had significant effects on the subscales of the safety behavior scale. The present study is significant in that it revealed that personality, a broad construct, can predict human errors and safety behaviors, which have had previously been found to associate with only specific variables, such as stress, impulsiveness, and perfectionism.