Human factors中文
Human Factors: Fatigue, Fear, Ego, and Team Decisions
Most accidents are not knowledge failures. They are judgement failures — and the judgement was fine until fatigue, fear, ego or a silent group got involved.
In short
Human factors are not about attitude; they are about how fatigue, fear, ego and group pressure change judgement. Accidents usually happen when everyone thought it was fine at the time. Use STOP — stop, think, observe, plan — write no-go conditions before you leave, and make dissent safe so the quietest person can stop the climb.
Accident reports rarely end with "they did not know how". They end with "it seemed fine at the time". Six mechanisms do most of that work.
The six
- Fatigue — poor sleep, consecutive days, too little food. Judgement degrades before the body admits it, and technique degrades with it.
- Fear — appropriate fear protects you. Too much freezes you or makes you rushed; too little makes you bold in the wrong place.
- Ego and sunk cost — six months of training, money spent, teammates watching. All of it argues against turning around.
- The group — authority, conformity, silence. Nobody wants to be the one who says "I think this is wrong".
- Risk homeostasis — add a harness, a helmet, a satellite device, and behaviour gets bolder. The safety equipment quietly pays for the extra risk.
- The experience illusion — it worked last time, on this route, in this season. Familiar ground changes.
Decision tools
- STOP: Stop, Think, Observe, Plan. Especially when you are tired enough to skip it.
- Three questions: what is the worst case here? If someone is injured, can we get out? What do we lose by turning around now?
- Red flags — weather turning, running out of daylight, a teammate deteriorating, terrain harder than expected, gear failing. Any one of them is enough to turn.
- Write your no-go conditions before departure, and do not renegotiate them on the mountain.
The team
- Brief before starting: route, retreat points, hazards, who decides, who sweeps.
- Check in every one to two hours. Make "I cannot continue" an acceptable sentence.
- Invite dissent explicitly. Assign someone to argue the other side, and let the leader speak last.
- Debrief afterwards on facts, decisions and what would change — not on who to blame.
Training
- Rehearse fatigue, bad weather and night retreats. Practise saying no.
- Read accident reports (AAC, UIAA) for patterns, not just for gear lessons.
- Mental training is not motivation. It is recognising bias, lowering ego and improving communication.