A Behavioral Interpretation of Situation Awareness: Prospects for Organizational Behavior Management

Killingsworth et al. (2016) wrote a theory paper. They asked: can we take the idea of situation awareness from airplane cockpits and use it in ABA?

They mapped each part of situation awareness onto behavior-analytic terms. The goal was to give OBM practitioners a new lens for watching staff in risky jobs.

The authors showed that situation awareness fits inside a behavior-analytic box. You can define it as seeing, saying, and acting on the right cues at the right time.

They argued this lens helps you spot why errors happen in hospitals, factories, or clinics.

Hardesty et al. (2025) took the idea and ran with it. They built a full staff-safety program in an inpatient unit. They track injuries like data points and teach staff to notice danger cues—pure situation awareness in action.

Hart et al. (1968) set the table. Their seven dimensions of applied behavior analysis say an intervention must be behavioral, analytic, and technological. Killingsworth et al. (2016) follow the same rules while adding a new tool.

Taras et al. (1993) push systems-level thinking. Both papers tell you to zoom out from one person to the whole workplace. Killingsworth gives you the lens; E et al. give you the map.

Next time you do a task analysis, add a situation-awareness column. Ask: what should staff see, say, and do every 30 seconds? Then measure it. You will catch near-misses before they become injuries.