Investigating the impact of virtual reality accident experience on construction workers' risk habituation through individual behaviors

In developed countries, due to the prevalence of high-rise buildings, construction workers often need to work on scaffolding in a safe manner to ensure their safety. Consequently, the unsafe behavior of workers in these highly risky environments plays a critical role in shaping and affecting their safety. Health and safety practitioners are providing virtual reality (VR) safety training interventions to increase workers' risk sensitivity. However, repeated exposure to the same VR safety training may lead to the risk habituation to these hazards. To this end, this study investigates the impact of repeated VR-simulated accident experience safety training on worker risk habituation to fall accidents. An accident experience was simulated in the VR safety training tasks, during which workers were asked to follow safety protocols and remain vigilant of their surroundings. Repeated safety training was provided to workers, and their risk habituation was measured using changes in the risk perception score. The results revealed that the initial accident experience safety training increased their risk sensitivity, but repeated exposure to safety training decreased their risk sensitivity, ultimately leading to risk habituation. Individuals with lower risk attitudes and conscientiousness were more prone to habituation, whereas individuals with better safety knowledge were less affected. The outcome of this study contributes to understanding how construction workers become habituated to repeated safety training, and it might be possible that this phenomenon could potentially transfer to real construction sites, posing fatal risks to construction workers.