The present paper deals with the relationship between implicit safety-critical attitudes and safety culture. In this study explicit and implicit safety-critical attitudes of 376 participants working in different industries (e.g. chemical industry, automotive, timber and metal industry) were measured. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) – a method based on mental chronometry – was applied to assess implicit safety-critical attitudes. Questionnaires were used to measure explicit safety attitudes and various indicators of safety culture. The results of this study show that explicit and implicit safety-critical attitudes represent different aspects of an organisational safety culture. Moreover, recommendations for future research in the field of safety culture assessment are made.