This article is essentially a discussion of methods to be used for analysing individual accidents. The big problem in this field is analogous to that of sciences such as prehistory or palaeontology: how to get a coherent and reliable story of occurrences about which only very fragmentary and possible distorted data are available. In principle this problem is to be solved in each individual case by connecting the available data by "filling hypotheses"- comparable to the theories found in crime stories - and gradually developing these into more general and scientific hypotheses. This can be done by actively looking for further evidence; starting from the " filling hypotheses" specific questions are suggested concerning the same and other accidents, and eventually more general questions to be answered by research may be discovered. The ultimate goal is a 'story of the accidents' that does not stand isolated but constitutes an integrated part of the story of the task" during which the accident occurred. This is the only way in which the psychology of accidents may develop into a science about real phenomena in stead of the abstractions that- in the form of statistical frequencies- at the time still constitute its main subject matter.
Abstract