Feeling safe at work: Development and validation of the Psychological Safety Inventory

Abstract

Psychological safety, defined as perceptions that an individual within a team is supported and feels safe to take interpersonal risks, voice opinions, and share ideas, is vital for organizational effectiveness. However, there is no consensus on how workplace psychological safety should be measured. We developed the Psychological Safety Inventory (PSI) in response to organizational needs to accurately assess psychological safety. A 70‐item version of the PSI was administered to 497 employees from Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Based on factor analytic findings, we reduced the preliminary PSI to a 30‐item, five‐factor scale. The PSI showed high reliability and correlated as anticipated with convergent measures. Overall, the PSI is a valid and reliable measure of workplace psychological safety.

Keywords

psychological safety · psychometrics · scale validation · teams · workplace

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