Measures are taken in order to optimise processes or to solve problems. The motivation for this can be very different, e.g. to handle problems like economic imbalances and social conflicts or to reduce risks, such as terrorist threats, industrial accidents or corporate crises. However, any change has an impact on the risk situation. During our own studies in very different fields relating to safety and security issues and the impact of the human factor, we made a remarkable discovery. In different fields, various measures are taken to handle difficult situations but the introduced measures fail to achieve their aim and intensify the risk situation. We found a counterproductive mechanism. This effect is of great interest to the work in the field of safety and security, which is why several of these studies have been intensively analysed from this point of view in a kind of a review. With regard to methodology, the analysis of the series of case studies is based on observations and a statistical-empirical approach, with a theory for the counterproductive mechanism being derived from the observation of reality (case studies). The counterproductive phenomenon was discovered in a lot of cases, even where explicit safety and security strategies had been taken. So far, safety science has not systematically explored the hazards caused by itself. This is true for the fields of both safety and security. At the moment, the exact cause-effect relationships for the counterproductive mechanism are not well known, but human behaviour plays a fundamental role in it. It is often ignored and reduced to rational structures. Awareness of this problem is the first step towards solving this (common-cause failure) situation. (C) 2017 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.