Communicate Science Effectively by Using Risk Perceptions, Narrative, and Persuasion Theory Webinar Recording

Earn 1 Contact Hour

Member $99 | Nonmember $125 | Student $25

Learn how you can use the sciences of risk perceptions, narrative, and persuasion theory to develop your skills as an effective communicator.

In your career as an IH/OEHS professional, have you ever been told:

“Why should we trust you?! You’re being paid by them!”
“Dear Jon, please cease to work on the gas sensors in my lab. We will buy a new one.”
“You don’t sound like any EHS professional I’ve ever spoken with.”

All these examples are based on risk perceptions in the affective frame (experiential system, i.e., our emotional center) including a threat to value. By using conflict management, relational communication, and (re-)building trust, these types of interactions can turn out successfully for both parties.

Both collaboration and communication depend on being able to relate to each other and develop mutual trust. Sadly, for IHs, data and technical information typically don't sway minds or hearts. However, when we first focus on bonding and how we relate to each other, we can then weave and integrate our hard technical skills into the conversation.

In this webinar, we’ll explore both the science and art of conflict management, relatability, team cohesion, value setting, interpersonal communication, using narratives/stories, the affect/experiential risk system, and how our cognitive biases affect them. Examples, cases, and micro-stories will be used to illustrate how you can successfully incorporate the techniques shown.

These are all learned skills that you can (and should) acquire!

Who Will Benefit

Occupational and environmental health and safety (OEHS) professionals who need to communicate with non-IHs, must engage with others in trickier situations, or anyone who has found communicating in business settings a challenge.

Learning Objectives  

• Describe the science behind the power of stories over data
• Explain the benefits of conflict management to bring us together
• Promote better team cohesion as an effective tool
• Apply value setting techniques for greater relatability

• Differentiate the affect/experiential risk system from the logical/rational system
• List several of the cognitive biases that affect our risk perceptions
• Improve your overall interpersonal communication and persuasion skills

Presenter

Jonathan Klane, M.S. Ed., CIH, CSP, CHMM, CIT is the Director of Risk Management and Safety Education for BioRAFT. In this innovative position, he focuses on the challenges facing us and creating opportunities and solutions for the greater EHS community.

As part of the Risk Innovation Lab at Arizona State University, he has studied how stories, narratives, safety culture, and other dynamics affect our risk perceptions and behaviors.

In his Ph.D. program in Human & Social Dimensions of Science & Technology at ASU, he studies stories/narratives and persuasion theory as they affect our cognitive biases, risk perceptions, and decision-making. This has brought greater clarity to why we tend to make decisions that don’t always seem logical via data but are both intuitive and explicable when viewed through the sciences of stories, risk, cognition, and persuasion theory.

He now works hard to solve EHS challenges using these research areas in his new role with BioRAFT by engaging with peers and others, problem-solving, and providing useful and thought-provoking content to the research and EHS communities.

Questions? Contact [email protected].