2014 International Conference on Management Science & Engineering (21th)
August 17-19, 2014
Helsinki, Finland
Research on Positive and Negative Incentive Method to Active Individual
Based on Safety Management: FRN Evidence
SHI Li-ping，JIA Ya-nan，QIN Shu-zhen
School of Economics and Management, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, P. R. China
Abstract: In the process of enterprise's safety
production, human factor plays a more and more
important role. According to the classification of
personality psychology, taking the active individual as
the research object, through the method of cognitive
neuroscience experiment to make a comparative study of
the effectiveness of the positive and negative incentives.
The experiment based on the evaluation paradigm of
responding task results, mainly adopting "tip - target feedback" paradigm, through comparing the stimulates
from two groups, in the block1,16 participants with
active traits were asked to respond to the square of
different positions on the screen in the prescriptive time
through clicking the key. If the participants click the
square before the ending, a coin would be given as a
reward; otherwise, no rewards would be given. In the
same way, in the block 2, if the participants don’t click
the square before the ending time, a punishment would
be given; otherwise, no punishment would be given.
Negative components can be used to analyze the
feedback, FRN, reflecting the subjects themselves in the
mind of positive incentive method and negative incentive
method two kinds of incentive methods to assess potency.
The results reflected that positive incentive has more
accurate answers than that of negative incentive, and
punishment has a more significant FRN waveform than
that of reward, when the participants give a right answer,
without given a reward has a more significant FRN
waveform than that of having a reward. This
demonstrates that positive incentive method has a better
management effect than negative when it comes to active
individual during the safety management.
Keywords: active individual, FRN, negative
incentive methods, positive incentive methods, safety
management
1 Introduction
At present, there are more and more production
safety accidents. And the safety problems are being
getting more and more attention of the researchers. In the
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (71271063) and the International Exchange Program of
Harbin Engineering University for Innovation-oriented Talents
Cultivation
process of the enterprise’s safety production, production
personnel as the direct participants of enterprise
production process whose effect cannot be ignored.
Researching people’s behaviors is conductive to solving
the safety production problems much better. People’s
behaviors will be influenced by psychological factors,
physiological factors and environment factors. A
person’s psychological and behaviors are interdependent
and influence each other. The psychological activities are
implicit, behaviors are explicit, the explicit behaviors are
dominated by implicit psychological activities, and the
implicit physiological activities get development through
the explicit behaviors. From the perspective of the
relationship between the psychological activities and
behaviors, this study explored the complex psychological
activities how to influence persons’ safety behaviors.
Character is a very complicated psychological
phenomenon with different kinds of psychological
characteristics which produce a stable attitude to reality
and a habit of behavior, affecting people’s positivity[1].
At the same time, the production behaviors will be
affected by employee personality characteristics which
will lead to different production effects[2]. Since
personality is formed in a long-term social environment
and isn’t easy to be changed[3]. As a result, the
corresponding management measures for employees with
different characteristics in the production of behavior
guidance are considered to be an effective way of safety
production
management[4].
According
to
the
classification of personality psychology characteristics,
in the view of the individual have the active
characteristics, researching on the incentives methods of
safety production management[5].
Because incentive methods have a direct influence
on employee’s cognition, therefore, the employee's
production behavior will be influenced by incentive
methods[6]. In the field of safety production management,
therefore, a study suggests that the implementation of the
safe work practice depends on the employee's
expectations [7]. A report from the United States DuPont
shows that more than 90% of the safety accidents which
caused by human factors, and the relative reports said if
we just emphasis on inputs one-sided, eliminating the
hidden trouble of all process, but ignoring the employee
behavior, that only can solve 20% accidents[8,9]. If we
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can't realize the importance of human factors, the
production accidents will be difficult to be controlled[10].
The neural basis of social cognition mainly involves
three brain regions, which contains the amygdala,
orbito-frontal cortex(OFC) and superior temporal gyrus,
superior temporal sulcus and gyrus (STG), which was
put forward in the late 1980s by Brothers, and they called
the regions-"social brain"[11] . The amygdala stimulates
an emotional response, including autonomic nervous,
endocrine, the change of somatosensory which causes
the brain physiological and neurological the qualitative
change, producing the emotional response of central
representation. Awareness to stimulate the emotional and
social information has a special significance for fast and
automatically evaluation to stimulate the biological,
besides, prefrontal cortex (the PFC) also plays an
important role in social behavior[12]. A large number of
brain injury, brain imaging and electrophysiological
study confirmed the prefrontal cortex plays an important
role of social cognition and mood. Among them, the
ventral medial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) is particularly
important for social cognition[13]. VMPFC has awareness
to stimulate the emotional and social significance of the
function of representation, and the function of the
amygdala is similar, but there are different aspects: first
of all, the VMPFC for positive and negative emotion
perception process are equally important, and it is clear
that the amygdala is clear that its role is important in the
negative emotion; Second, the readjustment of the
VMPFC is more flexible than the amygdale[14]. Earlier
Brothers realized that orbito-frontal OFC is one of the
social brain structures, it involved in reward or
punishment process related to the motivation and
emotion. Pleasant food, smell, taste, music, money,
attractive faces as a reward to stimulate, which can
increase the activity of the medial area of OFC. ACC can
be divided into the anterior cingulate cognitive division
(ACcd) and anterior cingulate affective division (ACad),
ACad is involved in the social cognitive emotion
processing. An ERP research demonstrates that there is
an error in the ACC monitoring role, when the wrong
answer occurs, it can produce errors which related to
negative wave (error - related negativity, ERN). Maybe
when the wrong answer occurs, it caused the emotions
associated with sadness (distress) and other cognitive
processes [15].
Electrical components, its source locates near the
ACC. Compared with other events related components,
FRN has its own characteristics. A study of the rapid
response event related potential found that feedback
related negativity (FRN) is the most important of the
brain processing timely feedback to stimulate [16]. Before
the participants click the keys, they know what should be
the right reaction, so as long as the subjects click the key,
they can know whether it’s right or not directly. While in
some experiences, the participants can not immediately
know if they make the right response, they can only
directly rely on the outside information feedback. In
1997, Miltne et al studied the result feedback event
related brain potentials, found brain waves also produced
negative deflection with incorrect result feedback.
Miltner et al studied this component and it is the same as
errors related negative wave, which may reflects the
process of error detection. The later researchers also
called feedback FRN for short.
Some studies found that the situation dependencies
is FRN monitoring system, such as Holoyd et al set up
three kinds of absolute potency in the study situation
(losing, neutral, winning), at the same time in each
situation, setting three relative titers (one of the best, in
the middle, the worst), it is found that FRN for winning
or losing and neutral, the three absolute potency is not
sensitive, but compared with other results situation, the
biggest result is one of the biggest result caused the
larger FRN amplitude [17]. In prospect theory, Kahneman
and Tversky considered: when an individual make
decisions, it is not related to the absolute value of utility
of all possible results, but referring to their own
standards to make decisions [18]. Xiang ling, Wang Baoxi
et al referenced the prospect theory to design two
experimental scenarios: let the participants choose a bet
the two bets ($5 and $25), then designed five kinds of
feedback as a result, the results found that when losing
money FRNS amplitude is the largest which verified the
hypothesis of referencing the point in the relative
potency of processing [19].
A series of related potential (ERP) studies suggest a
FRN composition can be induced by a feedback
stimulation, which reflect the cognitive and expected
departure from the feedback process. In order to verify
FRN waveform represents the negative feedback of
response in the brain or in the expected deviating process,
Liu Yaozhong and Tang Zhiwen divided experiments
into four kinds of feedback which were designed with the
Flanker paradigm: reflecting the right incentives, right
without reward, the error punishment and error without
punishment, the experiment results showed that reaction
right without reward and response error without
punishment induced larger amplitudes, and then
confirming FRN is a performance of expected
departure[20]. In conclusion, this study selected FRN as
experiment electrical components; exploring active
individual evaluated positive evaluation titer, at the same
time, through using behavioral data to analyze suitable
incentive measures for active individual.
Based on safety psychology and behavior theory,
we assume that the positive and negative incentive
methods in active individuals have significant
differences in behavior and ERP data. The difference
occurs with a significant feedback, the feedback will be
presented through FRN. Furthermore, according to the
found of Liu Yaozhong and Tang Zhiwen, we deduce the
positive and negative incentive methods have significant
differences in the accurate rate for active individuals;
Positive and negative incentive have significant
differences on the electrical components FRN for active
individuals. Negative incentive method will cause more
obvious FRN waveform. In order to find out the neural
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evidence to support this hypothesis, first, we make the
test subjects immersed in a situation of safety production,
and asked participants to hit the square which
appearances on the screen in the process of test,
according to different experiment results, participants
must be paired a reward or punishment. The assumptions
as follows specifically:
H1: positive and negative incentive method has
significant differences in behavior and ERP data for
active individuals.
H1-1: positive and negative incentive method have
significant differences in accurate rate for active
individuals.
H1-2: positive and negative incentive methods have
significant differences on the electrical components FRN
for active individuals. Negative incentive methods will
cause more obvious FRN waveform.
As to hypothesis H1-1, H1-2, experiment using the
single factor experiment design, the independent
variables are the different ways of stimulating: reward
and punishment, the dependent variables are participants
FRN waveform and accurate rate. Participants were
asked to hit target square by keys which appeared on the
screen as fast as possible. In the block1,16 participants
with active traits were asked to response to the square
of different positions on the screen in the prescriptive
time through clicking the key. If the participants click the
square before the ending, a coin would be given as a
reward; otherwise, no rewards would be given. In the
same way, in the block 2, if the participants don’t click
the square before the ending time, a punishment would
be given; otherwise, no punishment would be given.
Block1 and block2 experiment repeated 60 times each,
that is, a total of 120 times.
2 Methodology
3 Results
This experiment needs to choose active personality
according to the personality test. Eventually in 30
students, there are 16 persons belong to active individual
significantly, so we choose these 16 persons as
participants who are all students come from Harbin
engineering university. All the 16 participants are
right-handed (7male) students aged between 18 to 28
years old. All the subjects with normal vision or
corrected visual acuity, and there are no history of
neurological disorders and mental illness. All
participants agreed with the study acquired.
The experiment instruction is: suppose you are a
manager of coal enterprise, your work task is when the
purple square to appear on the screen, press the
corresponding key at the speed of as soon as possible to
hit square and its corresponding relationship is: "8"
corresponding "up", "2" corresponding "down", "6"
corresponding to the "right", "4" corresponding to the
"left", "5" correspondence "middle". Then a simple
exercise will be presented, press the enter key to start.
Instructions after the practice, press “7” after the practice
for once more; Press “enter” for the official start of the
experiment. When the official experiment starts, the time
of purple squares will appear for 550 ms, according to
the reaction of the participants, the stimulate will appear
last for 1300 ms, and then following a second square,
and the second cycle is repeated. Conclusion will appear
after ending the keys: the end of the experiment, thank
you for your participation.
This experimental paradigm references to "tip target - feedback" paradigm and combined with the
actual situation of E - Prime experimental software for
being improved, just as changing the randomly appear
square to target square on the screen in the position of
"up, down, left, right," five positions, participants should
be asked to hit squares as soon as possible after the rise
of squares, just hitting the key corresponding to the
located square on the keyboard. The Square is made 92 *
87 pixels, was presented in the 22 inch screen.
EEG data produced by Neuroscan Company Synamp2
Amplifier system and Scan4.3 software to be
amplificated and processed. The frequency of online
bandpass filter was 0.05 100 Hz, the sampling frequency
was 1000 Hz. In the whole experiment process, the
impedance remained under 5 k. After the experiment,
using Scan4.3 software analyzed the recorded EEG data,
including the following steps: getting rid of the bad data,
deleting
eyespots,
intercepting
analysis
paragraphs(interception is stimulus presentation before
200 milliseconds to 1500 milliseconds after the stimulus
presentation
of
EEG
data),
correcting
the
baseline( taking 200 milliseconds before stimulus
presentation of data as a baseline, and the rest of the
baseline by subtracting the part), to the artifact (remove
the peak - peak volatility than data), reference electrode
conversion, filtering (filter parameter is set to low pass
filter, frequency of 20 Hz), etc. Selecting ten electrical
position analyzed FRN electrical signal, and defined the
FRN as the largest negative wave of feedback stimulus
presented within 200 ms to 300 ms. The specific process
as shown in Fig.1 and Fig.2.
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Fig.1 FC1: Stimulation comparison chart
of FRNS waveform (rewards)
types: reward/no reward) * 10 (electrode) , the results
showed that stimulation of the main effect significantly
(F (1, 12) = 4.996, P = 0.047 < 0.05), compared with
incentives, button right without giving positive feedback
stimulation caused more significant FRN, consistent with
the initial hypothesis H1-2. Details are shown in Tab.1.
In order to analyze the behavior data of 16
participants, the study use the method of overlaying and
averaging analysis to get the average correct rate
of77.64%, which is consist with the expected correct rate
of 66% roughly. Besides, through the method, the study
found that the participants had good operation skills after
doing some exercises which would influence the result,
behavior data are shown in Tab.2. Because of this
problem, it was solved through processing the data
properly, and then get the final result.
Block 2 has a higher correct rate of 2.5% than block
1, and the result is lower than 3.3% which is the number
of being raised correct rate because of good operation
skills. From this it can be found that reward can cause a
higher correct rate than punishment.
Fig.2 FC1: Stimulation comparison chart
of FRNS waveform (punishments)
4 Conclusions
Fig.3 Brain electrode distribution picture
When intercepting FRN electrical components, take
the average amplitude of the time window from 200 ms
to 300ms, analyzing the forehead and centre of ten
electrodes, ten electrode position respectively (FZ, of F1,
F2, F3 and F4, FC1, FC2, FCZ, FC4, FC3), As shown in
Fig.3. The data is stored as a TXT format output, getting
three experimental control group of EEG data, included
12 effective experimental data.
According to repeated measurements analysis of
variance FRN amplitude of experiments 2 (stimulus
Experimental designed two types of contrast
stimulation: the first is a reward of hitting squares,
hitting square failure without reward; the second is to hit
square without reward, hit the square failure will lose
golden coin. The data processing results of Electrical
components showed that hitting square without reward
caused more significant FRNS waveform than hitting
square with reward. According to Kahneman and
Tversky's prospect theory, when the individual make
decisions, they did not base on the variety of possible
results of the absolute value of utility, but reference to
their own standards. From the view of this theory to
analysis the study, the brain wave of FRN was shaped
should due to participants themselves standard: as long
as you finish the hitting, a reward feedback will be given,
because the actual feedback type does not accord with
their own standards, there was not reward feedback given,
thus when they found the results did not conform to the
expected, The phase of the midbrain dopamine was
reduced, relieving the Inhibition of ACC neurons , and
then, FRN was generated (Holroyd & Coles).
Tab.1 Repetitive measure analysis of variance results of FRN
Multivariate Test b
Effect
Stimulation Type
value
F
hypothesis df
error df
Sig.
Pillai tracking
0.312
4.996a
1.000
11.000
0.047
Lambda of Wilks
0.688
4.996a
1.000
11.000
0.047
Hotelling tracking
0.454
4.996a
1.000
11.000
0.047
Biggest root of Roy
0.454
4.996a
1.000
11.000
0.047
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Tab.2 Behavior data
block1
block1
69.72
72.22
According to the discussion of the experiment EEG
data, we learned that for active individuals，positive
incentive method are more effective than the negative,
which provide the reference basis for the establishment
of enterprise safety production management incentive
measures. In addition to incentive methods mentioned in
this article, the guidance management contains a whole
process from the staff enter to leave the enterprise.
Enterprise manager should think of employees’ active
personality traits with a guidance management in order
to motivate employees to regulate their own security
behavior.
The study indicates that taking positive incentive
method can obtain a better management effect than the
negative for active individuals. Currently, during the
safety management process, with the technology is being
progressed and advanced production equipments are
being introduced, the strength and frequency of the
punishment for employees have been falling. More and
more managers realize that employee's subjective
initiative is more and more important to the enterprise,
but the establishment of the enterprise safety
management culture just relies on punishment is not
enough. In order to make employees aware of their roles
in the producing process and play their active role, it is
vital for manager to make staff feel recognition and
respect. Set up too many regulations and punishments
will hit the enthusiasm of employees during the
management process, especially for active individuals
will have the opposite effect.
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