TECHNICAL TALK: Affect Heuristic and its Influence on Operational Risk Management By: Shamsul Huda CEng, CMarEng, MIMarEST, GradIOSH
Synopsis “The Heart has its Reasons which Reason Knows Nothing of." (Blaise Pascal) “Affect” means a feeling state (good or bad) that we experience (with or without consciousness) associated with a stimulus (human, task, object). Good or bad affective feelings (Affect), attached to image facilitate information integration, guide and direct our judgements and decisions. This process is called “Affect Heuristic” (Finucane, Peters & Slovic, 2002). Operational risks onboard ships are predominantly managed by experiential mode of thinking. In this thinking mode, we encode reality by images. A lifetime of learning leads these images to become “marked” by good or bad feelings linked to somatic or bodily states. Thus, it is argued that affect heuristic is the centrepiece of the experiential mode of thinking. However, like other heuristics such as availability, representativeness, anchoring and adjustment that provide efficient and generally adaptive responses but occasionally lead us to ashtray, reliance on affect can also deceive us. There are two important ways that experiential thinking misguides us. One results from the deliberate manipulation of our affective reactions by those who wish to control our behaviour. The other results from the natural limitations of the experiential system and the existence of stimuli in our environment that are simply not amenable to valid affective representation. This talk will discuss the impacts of both types of problems on operational risk management onboard ships, and how to influence employees’ judgement and decision making for safe, effective and efficient operation of ships.
About the Speaker Shamsul joined Orient Ship Management Hong Kong as Engineer Cadet and worked onboard various types of ocean-going vessels as watch keeping engineer. He later joined Norwegian Crew Management, Oslo and thereafter was promoted to Chief Engineer in 1999. He won William Theodore Barker Prize from the Institute of Marine Engineering, London in 1999 for obtaining highest marks in Class – One Certificate of Competency (Motor) Examination from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, UK. In 2005 he was part of Unix Line Pte. Ltd. Singapore as Technical Superintendent managing Chemical Tankers. As of May 2006, he remains with Lloyd’s Register Singapore Pte Ltd. as Senior Marine Surveyor conducting hull, machinery and statutory surveys following types of ships – LPG, Oil, Chemical, Container, Bulk, General Cargo, Off-Shore Support, Special Purpose Ships; carrying out ship condition survey, Condition Assessment Program (CAP) for Hull, Machinery and Cargo Systems onboard Oil, Chemical and LNG Tankers, and Bulk Carriers; Lead ISM & ISPS Auditor; Lead MLC inspector; Lead trainer for Risk Management and Incident Investigation; Lead Risk, Safety and Human Factors Specialist. Based on his MSc thesis, he has co-developed a new consultancy service by working with LR's Global Technology Centre, Singapore for studying risk perception and decision-making of employees from shipping companies and implementing improvements with a view to minimise losses and maximise gains. He has been working as one of the committee members of the Human Element Working Group (HEWG) from the Institut
