Which of the following lists the five principles of human performance?

• A. Fallibility, Error, Individual Behavior, Accountability, Lessons Learned
• B. Fallibility, Error, Individual Behavior, Encouragement, Lessons Learned
• C. Error, Blame, Compliance, Motivation, Lessons Learned
• D. Fallibility, Error, Individual Behavior, Encouragement, Feedback

Answer: (B)

The question tests a safety-minded view of how people perform work, recognizing that mistakes will happen and that the right response is to design around those realities. The five principles are fallibility, which acknowledges that people can and will err; error, how those mistakes show up in actions; individual behavior, how a person’s actions interact with the system; encouragement, a non-punitive culture that supports reporting, learning, and improvement; and lessons learned, turning incidents and near-misses into concrete improvements.

This set fits best because it embodies a constructive, learning-focused approach to human performance. The other options introduce elements that aren’t part of these five principles—accountability or blame shifts the focus to individuals rather than the system; terms like blame or feedback don’t align with the explicit emphasis on encouraging reporting and applying lessons learned across the organization.