SAFETY CULTURE

Questioning Attitude 

TRAIT TALK

Trait Talk was developed to provide you 

with a better understanding of the nine 

safety culture traits found in the U.S. 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) 

Safety Culture Policy Statement (SCPS) 

and how they apply to you—whether 

you are an NRC licensee, a vendor or 

contractor employee, an organization 

interested in the safe and secure use 

of nuclear materials, or others involved 

in nuclear safety regulation. Please see 

page 4 of Safety Culture Trait Talk for 

more information on the SCPS.

Experience has shown that certain 

personal and organizational traits are 

present in a positive safety culture. 

A trait, in this case, is a pattern of 

thinking, feeling, and behaving that 

emphasizes safety, particularly in goal 

conflict situations, for example, in 

situations where production, schedule, 

or just the cost of effort may conflict 

with doing the job safely. The NRC 

identified nine traits of a positive safety 

culture in the SCPS, although the agency 

recognizes that additional traits may also 

be important. In addition, please note 

that the traits were not developed to 

be used for inspection purposes.

Each Trait Talk includes a fictional 

scenario based on a different 

licensee or community. The scenario 

used in this Trait Talk is based on the 

materials community. 

As you read through Trait Talk, consider 

the following questions: 

1. How does this trait apply to my 

organization? 

2. Are there other attributes and 

examples that better fit my 

organization? 

3. What impact does this trait have on 

the safety culture in my organization? 

4. How does this increase my 

understanding of the safety culture 

in my organization? 

5. How could I improve the performance 

of this trait in my organization?

What is the Definition of Questioning Attitude? 

The NRC’s SCPS defines Questioning Attitude as when individuals avoid complacency and 

continuously challenge existing conditions and activities in order to identify discrepancies 

that might result in error or inappropriate action.

Why Is This Trait Important?

The NRC has identified complacency as a key contributor to many incidents 

involving nuclear materials, such as the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant reactor 

vessel head degradation event and the Pennsylvania cancer treatment center event 

in which a patient died of radiation exposure. Avoiding complacency is essential 

to ensuring nuclear safety and can be achieved by instilling a questioning attitude 

in every employee. From the operator at a nuclear power plant challenging an 

assumption, to the medical physicist in a cancer treatment center questioning an 

unexpected change in treatment parameters, having a questioning attitude is vital for 

the safe use of nuclear materials and a positive safety culture.

It is each individual’s responsibility to continuously assess his or her duties, 

procedures, and job site to identify inconsistencies or abnormalities. Challenging 

assumptions, stopping work in the face of uncertainty, and proactively anticipating 

what may go wrong during a prejob brief reflect a questioning attitude and a positive 

safety culture. Employees should routinely and actively ask the following questions 

as they perform their jobs: Am I doing the right thing? How could we do this better? 

Are we using the right assumptions? Are we putting our people, plant, or patients 

at risk? What new practices could we implement that would minimize complacency 

and encourage a questioning attitude? 

Recognizing that external and internal conditions change over time, leaders must 

also continuously assess the organization or operation in its entirety, look beyond 

the individual task, and ask questions to ensure they understand what is currently 

happening and what might go wrong. As leaders ask questions and encourage others 

to do the same, the importance of having a questioning attitude will be reinforced 

throughout the organization. Leaders should consistently reward employees for 

asking questions and routinely discuss actual situations where a questioning attitude 

helped achieve a positive outcome.

A positive safety culture requires the collective commitment by both leaders and 

employees to emphasize safety over competing goals. A questioning attitude supports 

that commitment.

Issue 3 December, 2014

One of the traits of a positive safety culture as described in the U.S. Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission’s Safety Culture Policy Statement.
SAFETY CULTURE TRAIT TALK

WHAT DOES THIS TRAIT LOOK LIKE?

Nuclear is Recognized as Special and Unique: 

Individuals understand that complex technologies can fail 

in unpredictable ways. 

The organization ensures that activities that could affect 

nuclear materials are conducted with particular care, 

caution, and oversight. Individuals recognize the special 

characteristics and unique hazards of nuclear technology, 

including radioactive byproducts, and the importance of 

features designed to maintain nuclear safety. Executives and 

senior managers ask probing questions to understand the 

implications and consequences of anomalies, and challenge 

managers to ensure degraded conditions are fully understood 

and appropriately resolved, especially those involving 

equipment important to nuclear safety. 

Challenge the Unknown: Individuals stop when 

faced with uncertain conditions. Risks are evaluated and 

managed before proceeding. 

Leaders reinforce expectations that individuals take the time 

to do the job right the first time, seek guidance when unsure, 

and stop if an unexpected condition or equipment response 

is encountered. Individuals maintain a questioning attitude 

during pre-job briefings and job-site reviews to identify 

and resolve unexpected conditions. Individuals challenge 

unanticipated test results rather than rationalizing them. 

For example, abnormal indications are not automatically 

attributed to indication problems but are thoroughly 

investigated before activities are allowed to continue. 

Individuals stop work activities when confronted with an 

unexpected condition, communicate with supervisors, and 

resolve the condition prior to continuing work activities. 

When appropriate, individuals consult system and 

equipment experts. If a procedure or work document is 

unclear or cannot be performed as written, individuals stop 

work until the issue is resolved. 

Challenge Assumptions: Individuals challenge 

assumptions and offer opposing views when they think 

something is not correct. 

Leaders solicit challenges to assumptions when evaluating 

nuclear safety issues. Individuals ask questions to fully 

understand the bases of operational and management 

decisions that appear to be contrary to nuclear safety, and 

managers question assumptions, decisions, and justifications 

that do not appear to consider impacts to nuclear safety 

sufficiently. 

Avoid Complacency: Individuals recognize and 

plan for the possibility of mistakes, latent problems, and 

inherent risk, even while expecting successful outcomes. 

The organization is aware that latent conditions can 

exist, addresses them as they are discovered, and considers 

the extents of the conditions and their causes. Prior to 

authorizing work, individuals verify procedure prerequisites 

are met rather than assuming they are met based on general 

work site conditions. Individuals perform a thorough 

review of the work site and the planned activity every time 

work is performed rather than relying on past successes and 

assumed conditions, and they consider potential undesired 

consequences of their actions prior to performing work and 

implement appropriate error reduction tools. Leaders ensure 

specific contingency actions are discussed and understood 

during job planning and pre-job briefings. 

2 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission
SAFETY CULTURE TRAIT TALK

WHAT IS A SCENARIO IN WHICH THIS 

TRAIT COULD PLAY A ROLE?

A hospital was conducting a cancer treatment with a highdose rate brachytherapy remote afterloading system using 

an iridium-192 source. Just prior to the cancer treatment, 

the hospital had replaced the source and upgraded the 

software. When entering the data into the treatment system, 

the medical physicist was unable to electronically transfer 

the patient’s treatment plan from the planning system to 

the treatment system due to an error message. After several 

failed attempts by staff, the medical physicist entered 

the treatment plan manually into the treatment systems 

control console, rather than question why he was seeing 

the error message. Due to a bug in the software upgrade, 

the treatment system software created an unexpected 

source step size change in the treatment parameters. When 

the medical physicist entered the data manually for the 

source dwell times, the software automatically changed the 

entered data to the default parameters for the source step 

size. The medical physicist faced an unexpected condition 

with the software error, and failed to recognize the change 

in the source step size. The patient was then treated with a 

mispositioned source. The medical physicist failed to verify 

that the treatment computer system was correct after data 

entry and prior to treatment. As a result, the patient received 

a radiation dose to tissue outside the treatment area and an 

underdose to the treatment site. In addition, the hospital 

failed to follow its procedure of performing an independent 

review of the treatment plan prior to patient treatment.

This scenario illustrates equipment (software) errors as the 

initial precipitating event. Had the medical physicist used a 

questioning attitude, he could have identified the equipment 

failure and the hospital could have corrected this failure 

before treating the patient. 

Thinking about the scenario discussed above, consider the 

following questions:

1. How does this scenario apply to the safety 

culture trait Questioning Attitude?

2. What kinds of actions and behaviors would 

have reinforced safety as the overriding priority?

3. How could this situation have been prevented?

WHO CAN I CONTACT WITH A 

QUESTION OR SUGGESTION?

The NRC looks forward to continuing to provide you with 

information about the traits of a positive safety culture. If you 

have a question or would like to make a suggestion, please 

contact the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of 

Enforcement, Safety Culture Team, at external_safety_culture.

resource@nrc.gov.

Issue 3, December 2014 3

Sources of Information:

1 “Why is this trait important?” was derived, in part, 

from a literature review (Agencywide Documents 

Access and Management System (ADAMS) Accession 

No. ML13023A054) prepared by Pacific Northwest 

National Laboratories for the NRC Office of Nuclear 

Regulatory Research. 

2 “What does this trait look like?” was derived from 

the Safety Culture Common Language effort (ADAMS 

Accession No. ML13031A343), under the direction of 

the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Panelists 

from the NRC, nuclear power industry, and the public 

created attributes of a positive nuclear safety culture, 

and examples of each attribute that a nuclear power 

organization should demonstrate in maintaining a 

positive safety culture. Although these attributes and 

examples were created specifically for the reactor 

community, they may also be applicable to various 

other communities and organizations. For purposes 

of Trait Talk, the examples were partially rewritten to 

increase applicability to nuclear as well as non nuclear 

communities. 

3 “What is a scenario in which this trait played a role?” 

was developed specifically for Safety Culture Trait Talk 

for educational purposes only. The scenario is fictional 

and any resemblance to actual events, people, or 

organizations is purely coincidental.
SAFETY CULTURE TRAIT TALK

4 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The NRC’s SCPS provides the NRC’s expectation that 

individuals and organizations performing regulated 

activities establish and maintain a positive safety culture 

commensurate with the safety and security significance 

of their activities and the nature and complexity of 

their organizations and functions. Because safety and 

security are the primary pillars of the NRC’s regulatory 

mission, consideration of both safety and security issues, 

commensurate with their significance, is an underlying 

principle of the SCPS.

The NRC’s SCPS applies to all licensees, certificate holders, 

permit holders, authorization holders, holders of quality 

assurance program approvals, vendors and suppliers of 

safety-related components, and applicants for a license, 

certificate permit, authorization, or quality assurance 

program approval subject to NRC authority. In addition, 

the Commission encourages the Agreement States (States 

that assume regulatory authority over their own use 

of certain nuclear materials), their licensees, and other 

organizations interested in nuclear safety to support the 

development and maintenance of a positive safety culture 

within their regulated communities. The SCPS is not a 

regulation; therefore, it is the organization’s responsibility, 

as part of its safety culture program, to consider how to 

apply the SCPS to its regulated activities.

The NRC’s SCPS, which includes the definition of nuclear 

safety culture and the nine traits of a positive safety culture, 

can be found on the NRC’s Safety Culture Web site. The 

Web site includes additional safety culture information, as 

well as the NRC safety culture case studies, which describe 

how the presence or absence of safety culture traits affects 

the outcome of the events.

WHAT IS THE NRC’S SAFETY CULTURE POLICY STATEMENT?

There are many definitions of safety culture. Most of these definitions focus on the idea that in a positive safety culture 

individuals and organizations emphasize safety over competing goals, such as production or costs, ensuring a safety-first focus. 

The NRC’s SCPS defines nuclear safety culture as the core values and behaviors resulting from a collective commitment 

by leaders and individuals to emphasize safety over competing goals to ensure protection of people and the environment.

Experience has shown that certain personal and organizational traits are present in a positive safety culture. The following traits 

were included in the NRC’s SCPS, although additional traits may also be important in a positive safety culture:

Leadership Safety Values

and Actions

Problem Identification 

and Resolution Personal Accountability

Leaders demonstrate a 

commitment to safety in 

their decisions and behaviors.

Issues potentially impacting 

safety are promptly identified, 

fully evaluated, and promptly 

addressed and corrected 

commensurate with 

their significance.

All individuals take personal

responsibility for safety.

Work Processes Continuous Learning Environment for 

Raising Concerns

The process of planning and 

controlling work activities is 

implemented so that safety 

is maintained. 

Opportunities to learn about ways 

to ensure safety are sought out 

and implemented.

A safety conscious work 

environment is maintained 

where personnel feel free to 

raise safety concerns without 

fear of retaliation, intimidation, 

harassment or discrimination.

Effective Safety 

Communications Respectful Work Environment Questioning Attitude

Communications maintain 

a focus on safety.

Trust and respect permeate the 

organization.

Individuals avoid complacency 

and continually challenge existing 

conditions and activities in 

order to identify discrepancies 

that might result in error or 

inappropriate action.