Interpretability of Surround Shapes Around Safety Symbols: Cross-Cultural Differences Among Migrant Farmworkers

Risk communication based on safety signs is a fundamental componentin high-hazard industries as agriculture, to prevent injuries. To makesigns easily comprehensible by all users, the design of safety signs has beenstandardized in terms of color and shape to distinguish the different types ofsafety messages. Nevertheless, several studies demonstrated that individualcharacteristics as education, cultural background, and experience, can affectsafety signs comprehension. Considering the increasing number of the migrantworkforce in agriculture, especially in high-income countries, it is significant toinvestigate cross-cultural differences in safety signs interpretation. A sample ofsixty migrants (Romanian n = 8; Indian n = 12; Pakistani n = 28; Gambiann = 12) employed in Italian farms was asked to associate four graphical symbolsrepresenting the main types of safety messages (mandatory, prohibition, warning,emergency), to the corresponding surround shape. With regard to geometricshape interpretation, the results showed that less than 50% of participants chosethe standardized shape for warning (triangle), mandatory and prohibition(round) signs; while the majority of respondents assigned the emergency sign tothe square shape. With regard to nationality, all the shape-symbol associationsmade by Romanians corresponded to the standardized ones, followed by Indians(52%), Pakistanis (43%) and Gambians (42%). No significant differencesemerged either for the length of stay in Italy or for years of education. Resultsconfirmed the role of national culture in safety signs interpretation and seem toshow that only migrants from countries closer to the Western culture are morefamiliar with the meaning of standardized shapes.