University of New South Wales - School of Risk and Safety Sciences

LECTURER

PhD (Psych) (USyd), BA (Psych) (Newcastle), GradCert Univ. Teaching and Learning (UNSW)
Phone : 938 56142
Email : carloc@unsw.edu.au

Carlo joined the School of Safety Science in early 2005. He has an Undergraduate Honours degree in Psychology from the University of Newcastle, and a PhD in Psychology from the University of New South Wales.

Carlo’s PhD examined the relationship between stress, personality and health. More specifically, it investigated the role of stress as a mechanism for previously observed relationships between particular personality variables and long term health outcomes.

Carlo previously worked at the NSW Injury Risk Management Research Centre, on projects which investigated elements of risk perception in young drivers. Carlo has worked as a research assistant in Psychology at the University of Sydney, and as a tutor and casual lecturer in several undergraduate Psychology programs at USYD.

Carlo has provided expert witness testimony, particularly regarding workplace bullying and harassment. He has undertaken consultancy work for several industry groups on safety related projects.

Carlo has a wide range of research interests, and his research is best categorised as human factors applied across several domains. These research interests include:

Psychological hazards at work (e.g., stress, fatigue and workplace bullying)
Risk perception and risk communication (including biases in risk perception, risk compensation and risk behaviour)
Safety culture/climate, performance measurement and behavioural approaches to safety
Human factors in transport

If you would like to know more about these and other research areas, and specific research projects that are currently being conducted, please email or phone Carlo.

Selected publications

Caponecchia, C., & Wyatt, A (2007). The problem with “workplace psychopaths”. Journal of Occupational Health and Safety, Australia and New Zealand, 23(5), 403-406.
Baysari, M. T., McIntosh, A. S, Williamson, A. M., Caponecchia, C., Dunn, N., Spring, P. & Wilson, J. R. (2008) Rail Safety and Reliability: A human factors/ergonomics approach. Ergonomics Australia 21(4), 14-22.
Caponecchia, C. (in press). It won’t happen to me: Unrealistic optimism regarding occupational health and safety. Journal of Applied Social Psychology Accepted June 2008.
Caponecchia, C. (2009). Strategies to improve the communication of probability information: Applications to Biosecurity risks. International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management, 12, 2/3/4, 380-395.
Wilson, J. R., Vaegen-Lloyd, J., & Caponecchia, C (2009). Workshop-based methodology to understand the risks in grain export inspection and certification. Ergonomics, 52(7), 759-773.
Baysari, M. T., Caponecchia, C., McIntosh, A. S., & Wilson, J. R. (2009). Classification of errors contributing to rail incidents and accidents: A comparison of two human error identification techniques. Safety Science, 47, 948-957.
Caponecchia, C., & Wyatt, A. (2008). Victimising the “bully”: The problem with the “workplace psychopaths” approach. Paper presented at The 6th International Conference on Workplace Bullying and Harassment, Montreal, June 2008.