Tunnel Construction Workers’ Cognitive Biases and Unsafe Behaviors: The Mediating Effects of Risk Perceptions

The poor safety performance of the construction industry is a global concern. Workers’ unsafe behaviors (WUBs) are viewed as critical causes of construction accidents. Thus, it has been a leading research topic to identify antecedents of WUBs and establish reliable models to explain WUBs. Cognitive biases (CBs) are salient antecedents of WUBs. However, the relationships between CBs and WUBs are not further explored in construction safety management. As such, this study selected three prevalent CBs, i.e., availability bias (AB), confirmation bias (FB), and overconfidence, and investigated the relationships between the three CBs and WUBs and the functions of RPs in these relationships among tunnel construction workers. We established six multiple regression models. Research results show that CBs can directly influence RPs and WUBs, RPs are antecedents of WUBs, and the mediating effect of RPs on the relationships between CBs and WUBs is salient. In detail, AB and FB explain more ERP and overconfidence explains more BRP. AB and FB indirectly influence more WUBs through ERP, while overconfidence indirectly affects more WUBs through BRP. The study provides a novel theoretical paradigm for conceptualizing CBs and their relationships with RPs and WUBs. The research results can also guide managers to take debiasing measures to decrease workers’ unsafe behaviors on the construction site.