Duck, Duck, Black Swan: A psychological dive into how the human brain can dangerously simplify high consequence, low frequency events.

Duck, duck, goose is a traditional, much-loved children’s game that plays on the balance between expectation and sudden reality. How does this relate to process safety management I hear you ask?

Replace the animal of goose with a swan, and in particular a black swan and you may begin to bring frequency of event into the fold. Frequency is a much deliberated topic in the world of process safety, as we ask ourselves how likely is a particular event to occur?

The financial world has been familiar with the term “Black Swan Event” since the release of Wall Street trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s aptly titled book “The Black Swan”, describing such an event with three key characteristics:

• It is unpredictable,
• it carries a massive impact; and,
• after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was.

This presentation discusses how as humans we are cognitively wired to simplify such events, and how dangerous this can be in Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) development. Taking a deeper look at what the psychological sciences and the financial market can teach the process safety industry today, translating a dulled rainbow of swans into practical use of risk matrices.