- Behavioral science offers frameworks — including the COM-B model, nudge theory, and motivational interviewing — that diagnose why specific behaviors occur and match interventions to the underlying mechanisms rather than defaulting to generic training.
- The COM-B model maps behavior change to three prerequisites: capability, opportunity, and motivation — each requiring a fundamentally different type of intervention.
- A systematic review of 39 peer-reviewed studies found the COM-B model entirely absent from occupational safety interventions, despite its established effectiveness across healthcare, public health, and policy.
- Generic safety programs that do not diagnose which mechanism is driving unsafe behavior frequently target the wrong lever and produce limited, unsustained, or no change.
When the UK government wanted to increase organ donation rates, it didn't launch an awareness campaign. It changed the default. Citizens who wanted to opt out of donation had to actively do so, rather than actively opting in. Donation rates rose considerably. When a hospital network in the United States wanted to reduce healthcare-associated infections, it didn't retrain nurses on handwashing protocols. It moved hand sanitizer dispensers to the entrance of every patient room. Compliance improved substantially. Both interventions cost almost nothing. Neither required anyone to care more about the outcome. They simply made the desired behavior the easier behavior.
These are nudges — small, low-cost modifications to the environment that guide people toward better decisions without restricting their choice or demanding deliberate effort. They are one instrument in a toolkit that behavioral science has been developing for decades, with a growing and rigorous evidence base across public health, financial services, environmental policy, and civic engagement.
In occupational safety, that toolkit remains largely unused. And the consequences of that gap are measurable.
This post draws on Safety Behaviors and Behavioral Science Approaches in High-Hazard Industries: A Systematic Review Report by Dr Khaleda Ahmadyar (April 2026). Conducted in accordance with PRISMA 2020 guidelines, the review synthesizes 39 peer-reviewed studies across more than 20 countries and six high-hazard industries: construction, mining, manufacturing, agriculture, oil and gas, and transportation. It is the only cross-industry synthesis currently available that evaluates how behavioral science frameworks have been applied to occupational safety interventions and to what effect.
Behavioral science draws on psychology, behavioral economics, and implementation science to answer a question that HSE professionals face every day: why do people behave the way they do — and what does it actually take to change it? Its core contribution is a diagnostic shift. Rather than assuming that unsafe behavior reflects a knowledge deficit that training will correct, behavioral science asks: what specific capability, opportunity, or motivation is missing in this context, for these people, under these conditions?
That diagnostic logic is most comprehensively expressed in the COM-B model, developed by Michie, van Stralen, and West (2011) and now among the most widely cited frameworks in the behavior change literature. COM-B maps behavior to three prerequisites:
The model functions as a diagnostic instrument: identify which element is missing, and you can identify which class of intervention is needed. A capability gap calls for education, training, or skill development. An opportunity gap calls for structural or environmental change — better access to protective equipment, redesigned workflows, clearer signage, a supervisor present rather than absent. A motivation gap calls for persuasion, social modeling, values-based communication, or habit-formation approaches.
Campaigns that treat these as interchangeable — running training programs where the real barrier is structural, posting motivational content where the real issue is peer culture — expend resources without producing change. The COM-B model prevents that misalignment. Yet the 39-study review found it entirely absent from occupational safety intervention research.
Nudge theory, developed by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (2008), proposes that modifications to choice architecture — defaults, visual cues, salience changes, friction reduction — can systematically guide behavior without restricting autonomy. In occupational safety, this might mean placing PPE dispensers at the natural entry point to a hazard zone rather than a general storage area, using floor markings to make the safe path the obvious path, or redesigning permit-to-work systems so completing the safety step is structurally easier than skipping it.
The evidence base for nudge interventions in occupational safety remains limited — just one study in the 39-study review — but the approach has produced strong results in analogous high-stakes behavior contexts in public health and infrastructure safety. Its core advantage is that it makes safe behavior the default rather than the deliberate choice, which matters enormously in environments where workers operate under time pressure and cognitive load.
Motivational interviewing, developed in clinical psychology by Rollnick and Miller (1995), is a collaborative, person-centered method that strengthens intrinsic motivation by helping individuals articulate a discrepancy between their current behavior and their own stated values. Rather than telling a worker why safety matters, it helps them explain — in their own reasoning — why it matters to them. One intervention study in the 39-study review found that motivational group interviewing produced significantly greater improvements in knowledge, attitude, and observed PPE use than traditional lecture-based training at 12-week follow-up (Navidian et al., 2015). The difference was not in the information delivered but in the mechanism engaged.
The Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) adds a further dimension by targeting not just individual attitude but subjective norms — a worker's perception of what colleagues and supervisors expect them to do — alongside perceived behavioral control, or confidence in their ability to perform the behavior. A manufacturing study found that a TPB-based program strengthened perceived behavioral control, which in turn improved both behavioral intention and observable safe behavior (Dankachatarn et al., 2023).
Which behavioral frameworks have actually been tested in high-hazard industries?
The systematic review evaluates theory use across 11 structured safety interventions — and assesses which frameworks produced the strongest and most durable behavioral effects.
The most commonly applied theories across the 11 intervention studies were goal-setting theory and reinforcement theory — both embedded in behavior-based safety programs (BBS) — followed by the Theory of Planned Behavior in two studies. Motivational interviewing, nudge theory, the Health Action Model, habit formation theory, and social norms theory each appeared once. The COM-B model appeared in none.
This is not a minor technical gap. It means that occupational safety intervention design has not kept pace with the broader behavioral science field, and that the frameworks most capable of producing precise, mechanism-matched behavior change have been almost entirely overlooked. Organizations that begin applying them now — through rigorous diagnosis before program design — are working at a significant advantage over those defaulting to generic training.
The intervention evidence post shows what that difference looks like in practice. And the barrier and driver evidence gives the diagnostic starting point.
What is the COM-B model and how does it apply to workplace safety?
The COM-B model is a behavior change framework that maps any behavior to three prerequisites: Capability (the knowledge and ability to perform it), Opportunity (the environmental and social conditions that make it possible), and Motivation (the intentions and impulses that drive it). In occupational safety, it functions as a diagnostic tool: identifying which of the three is the primary barrier in a given workforce tells you which type of intervention — training, structural change, or motivational communication — is actually needed. Despite being the most widely used behavior change framework in healthcare and public health, it has not yet been applied in published occupational safety intervention research.
What is nudge theory and how can it be used in occupational health and safety?
Nudge theory proposes that small, low-cost changes to the environment — referred to as choice architecture — can guide behavior toward safer options without restricting freedom or requiring deliberate effort. In workplace safety, nudges might include repositioning PPE at natural entry points to hazard areas, using visual cues to guide safe movement, or making safe defaults the starting point in digital systems. Nudges are particularly valuable in high-pressure, cognitively demanding environments where deliberate decision-making is limited.
What is the difference between behavior-based safety and a behavioral science approach?
Behavior-based safety (BBS) is a specific intervention method that uses systematic observation, feedback, and goal-setting to reinforce safe behavior. It draws on goal-setting and reinforcement theory and has a mixed evidence base — effective under specific conditions, inconsistent in others. A behavioral science approach is broader: it encompasses the diagnosis of which mechanisms are driving unsafe behavior (using frameworks like COM-B), selection of matched intervention strategies, and application of a wider toolkit including nudges, motivational interviewing, and social norms theory. BBS is one tool; behavioral science is the diagnostic method that determines whether it is the right one.
Bottlenose is a behavior-change communication agency built for high-risk environments. Our purpose is to protect people's lives by applying behavioral science to workplace communication — guiding safer everyday decisions and fostering a culture of health, safety and environment.
Our name is inspired by the bottlenose dolphin: an intelligent, collaborative species known for guiding and protecting through gentle nudges and coordinated behavior. Just as dolphins influence one another through subtle prompts and shared awareness, we help organizations influence safer actions through thoughtful, evidence-based communication.
We design creative, science-backed campaigns that help employees make safer decisions — from reporting hazards and speaking up about unsafe work to reducing distracted driving and improving PPE compliance.
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