article
Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work
Edmondson, Amy C. "Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams." Administrative Science Quarterly 44, no. 2 (1999): 350–383.
Related concepts3 concepts
Concept
Contestability
Contestability names the condition where dispute can reopen without threatening shared coherence—where challenge does not mean collapse. It becomes important when legitimacy depends on more than coercion, when correction and revision matter for trust and adaptation. It helps preserve the capacity to learn from reality and adjust to changed conditions, but it thins when authority relocates legitimacy beyond ordinary revision—when sacred framing, canon, or procedure makes questioning feel dangerous. Contestability depends on whether revision feels survivable or indistinguishable from rupture. When small groups operate under mutual visibility, authority can be argued for even after it is obeyed. But under pressure—breakdown, threat, or instability—dissent begins to read as moral failure rather than political disagreement, and the range of acceptable interpretation narrows. Contestability thins while inherited certainty still coordinates; systems can run on compliance long after persuasion fades. It marks the moment just before certainty becomes difficult to question at all.
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Concept
Correction
Correction names the lived work of narrowing the gap between what was assumed and what is actually happening. It becomes important whenever systems, beliefs, or coordination can drift while still feeling operational. It helps preserve shared reality and learning, but can fail when every correction spawns new framing instead of updated contact with conditions. It differs from repair because correction updates belief and behavior; repair addresses damaged standing and trust. It differs from revisability because correction is the act; revisability is the designed capacity to keep correcting.
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Concept
Trust
Trust names the bridge that lets people act together when no one holds the whole scene. It becomes important when verification must extend beyond firsthand sight—through specialists, records, institutions, or repeated experience. It helps preserve participation across partial perspectives, but can fail when trust stops tracking reality and closure feels safer than checking. It differs from certainty because trust accepts incomplete verification; it differs from blind belief because it still depends on signals that can be tested, strained, or withdrawn.
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When Others Look to You
Renewal and Erosion in Leadership
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Why Collaboration Is So Hard
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Why joint work fails when incentives, trust, and shared understanding do not line up—and why the effort to collaborate still matters.
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