Re-thinking the mediating role of emotional valence and arousal between personal factors and occupational safety attention levels

Abstract

Emotions strongly affect occupational safety attention and public health; however, the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. We investigated the mediation mechanisms of emotional valence and arousal on safety attention using real time data. In all, 70 Chinese workers performed 8400 trials of hazard recognition tasks according to a pre-designed experiment. Their emotional and safety attention levels were recorded based on their facial expressions and eye movements, and the mediating mechanics of emotional valence and arousal were examined through a hierarchical regression. The study results show that: (1) emotional valence and arousal significantly and positively affect safety attention; (2) risk tolerance and personality significantly affect emotional valence and arousal but do not significantly affect safety attention; and (3) emotional valence and arousal significantly mediate safety attention levels and personal factors. From a theoretical viewpoint, this study corroborates the mediating role of emotion on occupational safety attention and personal factors by highlighting valence and arousal. Practically, managers can develop more specific training methods tailored to the results that pertain to workers’ higher emotional resilience for better occupational safety performance and health.