Team Psychological Safety
Also known as: Psychological Safety
Theory that teams differ in the shared belief that the group is safe for interpersonal risk taking — admitting error, asking for help, disagreeing, proposing unfinished ideas — and that this belief, more than talent or resources, governs whether a team learns. Psychological safety is a team-level climate, not an individual trait.
- Source:
- Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383.
- DOI:
- 10.2307/2666999
Constructs
Team Psychological Safety
The shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk taking — admitting a mistake, asking for help, disagreeing out loud, proposing unfinished ideas (Edmondson, 1999). It is a property of the team climate rather than an individual trait, and is theorized as distinct from team cohesiveness and from trust in specific individuals. Where safety is high, information moves fast and problems surface while they are small; where it is low, the taxed behaviors are minimized and errors go unreported rather than unmade.
Instruments
- NOESIS Team Psychological Safety ScaleNOESIS2026