The effect mechanism of construction workers’ emotion on unsafe behavior: Mediating role of safety attitude and moderating role of emotional intelligence

Abstract

Introduction: Construction workers’ unsafe behavior has been recognized as a primary cause of workplace safety accidents. Emotion, as an important psychological factor for construction workers, has been studied in a relatively limited way regarding its effect on unsafe behavior. This study aims to reveal the effects of construction workers’ positive and negative emotions on unsafe behavior, as well as the mediating role of safety attitude and the moderating role of emotional intelligence from a multi-theoretical integration perspective. Method: This study conducted an anonymous questionnaire of 568 construction workers in stages using the Hash-based anonymous unique identifier generation technique, and analyzed the data using structural equation modeling, bias-corrected percentile bootstrapping, and hierarchical linear regression, so as to validate the multi-theoretical integration framework of the emotion-attitude-behavior that was proposed. Results: The results indicated that positive emotion can reduce unsafe behavior directly or indirectly by enhancing safety attitude, while negative emotion can increase unsafe behavior directly or indirectly by weakening safety attitude. In addition, emotional intelligence can moderate the relationship between emotions and safety attitude, which means that high emotional intelligence can amplify the beneficial effect of positive emotion on safety attitude while attenuating the detrimental effect of negative emotion on safety attitude. Conclusions: Positive and negative emotions have a dual role in construction workers’ unsafe behavior, in which safety attitude plays a mediating role and emotional intelligence plays a moderating role. Practical Applications: These findings provide novel insights into the relationship between construction workers’ emotion and unsafe behavior, offering practical implications for the development of safety management strategies in the construction industry from an emotion management perspective.