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James Reason
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James Tootle Reason CBE (né Tootle; 1 May 1938 – 4 February 2025) was a British professor of psychology at the University of Manchester, from where he graduated in 1962 and was a tenured professor from 1977 until 2001.
Key Information
Background
[edit]James Tootle was born in Garston, Hertfordshire, on 1 May 1938.[1][2] His father was killed during The Blitz, and his mother died several years later, leaving him to be raised by his maternal grandfather, Thomas Reason, whose surname he adopted.[1] He was educated at the University of Manchester and the University of Leicester.[1]
Career
[edit]Reason wrote books on human error,[3] including absent-mindedness, aviation human factors, maintenance errors, and risk management for organizational accidents.[4] In 2003, he was awarded an honorary DSc by the University of Aberdeen. He was a Fellow of the British Academy, the British Psychological Society, the Royal Aeronautical Society, and the Royal College of General Practitioners. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2003 New Year Honours "for services to Reducing the Risk in Healthcare."[5] In 2011, he was elected an honorary Safety and Reliability Society fellow.[6]
Among his many contributions is the introduction of the Swiss cheese model, a conceptual framework for the description of accidents based on the notion that accidents will happen only if multiple barriers fail, thus creating a path from an initiating cause to the ultimate, unwanted consequences, such as harm to people, assets, the environment, etc.[3] Reason also described the first fully developed theory of a just culture in his 1997 book, Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents.[4]
Personal life and death
[edit]In 1964, Reason married educational psychologist Rea Jaari and had two children.[1] He died from pneumonia at a Slough hospital, on 4 February 2025, at the age of 86.[1][7]
Bibliography
[edit]Books
[edit]- Human Error, Cambridge University Press. 1990. ISBN 978-0-521-31419-0
- Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents, Ashgate,1997. ISBN 978-1-84014-105-4
- Managing Maintenance Error: A Practical Guide, CRC Press. 2003. ISBN 978-0-7546-1591-0
- The Human Contribution, Routledge. 2008. ISBN 978-0-7546-7402-3
- A Life in Error, Routledge. 2013. ISBN 978-1-4724-1841-8
- Beyond Aviation Human Factors, Routledge. 2016. ISBN 978-1-84014-948-7
- Organizational Accidents Revisited, CRC Press. 2016. ISBN 978-1-4724-4768-5
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f Rosenwald, Michael S. (13 March 2025). "James Reason, Who Used Swiss Cheese to Explain Human Error, Dies at 86". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 March 2025.
- ^ Sumwait, Robert L. (1 May 2018). "The Age of Reason". NTSB Safety Compass. Archived from the original on 18 December 2020. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
- ^ a b Reason, James (1990). Human Error. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-30669-0.
- ^ a b Reason, James T. (1997). Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents. Farnham, England: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84014-105-4.
- ^ "No. 56797". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2002. p. 8.
- ^ Reason, James (2013). A Life in Error: From Little Slips to Big Disasters. Farnham, England and Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 9781472418432.
- ^ "The Absent-minded Professor Who Made a Safer World". Flight Safety Australia. 10 February 2025. Archived from the original on 10 February 2025. Retrieved 10 February 2025.
