Psychological Safety?

Morgan Rutkowski

Humans have an innate need to feel safe and secure to survive. But, the literature has noted that there are differences between physical and psychological safety. While physical safety concerns “the absence of physical hazards”, psychological safety is the “absence of interpersonal fear” (Physical and psychological safety, n.d.; McKinsey & Company, 2023). More specifically, psychological safety prioritizes creating environments where individuals feel seen, valued, and respected, allowing people to operate at their highest self: they can be productive and creative in a multitude of areas in their lives. Those who feel psychologically secure are open to taking risks, speaking out, sharing disagreements or concerns, or voicing desired changes without fear of judgment, pressure, negative repercussions, or consequences from their community. Abraham Maslow emphasized the importance of safety in his infamous Hierarchy of Needs, positing that we need to feel safe to not only survive but to achieve a sense of belonging and to “self-actualize” into our own best version of ourselves (Maslow & Lewis KJ, 1987).

The Ever-Evolving Definition of Psychological Safety

Despite Maslow’s pyramid being the “poster child” for conceptualizing the need for psychological safety, much of the research originally focused on organizational psychology and bettering work environments (Newman et al., 2017). Over time, psychological safety in these settings is stratified into differing levels: safety at an individual/ employee level, team safety, and organizational safety (Ming et al., 2015).  Today, its applications involve teaching business leaders how to treat their employees better (i.e., fostering important leadership skills to create psychological safety, creating developmental programs, promoting a safe working environment, supporting employee mental health, shaping better leadership qualities, integrating community support, etc.) (McKinsey & Company, 2023).

However, over time the construct’s definition began to expand outside of cooperate retreats and construction sites and into general psychology. Clark (2020) theorized how psychological safety should be broken down into 4 stages: Inclusion Safety (“Can I be my authentic self?”), Learner Safety (“Can I grow?”), Contributor Safety (“Can I create value?”), and Challenger Safety (“Can I be candid about change?”). He also includes ways in which we can help foster each of these differing safety categories. For example, he suggests giving people space to talk, being curious, and verbally acknowledging and actively respecting boundaries to build Inclusion Safety.

Detecting Psychological Safety

There has even been work to analyze how safety can be detected. Biologically, the body can evaluate risk outside of consciousness known as “neuroception”(Porges, 2003). As the mind hones this skill, especially over decades or generations of traumatic exposures, this ability becomes a protective mechanism, shielding the nervous system away from dysregulating threats both to the mind and the body perceived in one’s environment (Porges, 2022). Another way to detect psychological safety is by human-made scales, most notably in the workplace. Edmondson (1999) created a 7 item- scale regarding team safety, Brown & Leigh (1996) scale regarding individual perception of psychological safety, and Tynan (2005) scale based on interpersonal interactions at the workplace, these have all been created to quantify the importance of this need for psychological safety (Ming et al., 2015).

What About Power and Privilege in Psychological Safety?

Despite the continuous modifications to the construct, the current literature has had little acknowledgment regarding the imbalances in burden when it comes to some groups attempting to achieve psychological safety in comparison to others. First off, this separation between “psychological” and “physical” safety is impossible. To have one constitutes the inclusion of the other. But, for the sake of running with this false narrative in that “safety” is a binary term, and psychological safety is “the absence of interpersonal fear” so that someone can be comfortable enough to express themselves and speak out, there are inherent risks to doing this (McKinsey & Company, 2023). However, this same risk is more burdensome on marginalized groups than it is for nonmarginalized groups (Psychological safety and privilege, 2023).

For agents, the risk of speaking out to satisfy the need to feel heard and respected is easier to mitigate. Usually, those who are in positions to speak out more comfortably are from groups who:

1. Benefit from the status quo
2. Want to maintain the status quo
3. Hold leadership positions and/or are in positions that are based on “hierarchy, tenure, expertise, or gendered or cultural privilege”
4. Are in charge of changing the norm.
5. Have the choice to ignore/opt out of the discussion if they believe their need for “psychological safety” is already being met
6. Can put the ownest on the other person to “just say something” and “don’t be scared”
7. Can demean the character of the individual not speaking up by saying they are just “not as courageous” and that their personality is somehow flawed in some way (justifying the unrealistic expectation for more “self-accountability”)

(Psychological safety and privilege, 2023)

Simply, it’s another modality to “other” marginalized groups- yet again justifying the “we” vs “them” heuristic.

Consequently, it’s harder for marginalized groups to speak out because the stakes are higher (Psychological safety and privilege, 2023). The status quo does not benefit them and, in reality, they fear the status quo due to its continued injustices. As a result, this desire to speak out becomes more exhaustive for those in their target ranks and is often placed on the back burner. Their neuroceptive awareness is letting them know that this potential danger is not worth the risk to their energy, let alone their security (i.e., disruptions to relationships, finances, job security, one’s own identity, and community reputation). 

The threat to “psychological safety” has become an even bigger threat to their physical safety, gaslighting the individual to choose between only one of two options: avoid the problem entirely and live with their needs going unmet or feel obligated to preserve one’s own basic needs to survive. And, again, if Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs emphasized that people need safety to belong and “self-actualize”, yet marginalized groups are now more preoccupied with physical self-preservation, how can they ever reach the “top” of the pyramid? While this continued examination of the environment is depleting those in their target ranks, colonizers can continue to control the narrative. They highlight that this is just an individual issue instead of acknowledging systemic corruption, distracting target groups from attaining liberation.

It’s our responsibility as current and future psychologists to critically evaluate the psychological constructs in our field we are handing to clients to use through a power and privilege lens. “It is a privileged perspective to suggest that people should simply speak up despite a lack of psychological safety” (Psychological safety and privilege, 2023). Ultimately, this idea of “psychological safety” needs to be trashed. Psychological safety is physical safety, but it has been used to gaslight marginalized groups into believing they are the ones preventing themselves from transcending into their own “best version”, all in the hopes of validating agent comfort and maintaining the power.

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