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Abstract

A common assumption regarding mass emergency situations is that individuals in such contexts behave in a way that maximizes their likelihood to escape, at the expense, or with little concern for, the welfare and survival of their neighbors. Doing so, they might even compromise the effectiveness of group evacuation. This conception follows the views of early works on crowd psychology, a tradition born with Gustave Le Bon's The Crowd: a study of the Popular Mind, first published in 1895, and which has had a tremendous impact on scientific representations of people's behavior in mass emergency contexts. Indeed, this work has greatly contributed to the idea that, in such situations, people revert to a primitive, impulsive, irrational, and antisocial nature, causing the breakdown of social order. However, more empirically oriented studies have consistently reported little collective panic, as well as a great deal of solidarity and pro-social behavior during mass emergency situations. Because of institutional barriers, such views have remained largely unknown to cognitive psychologists. Yet these are important results in that they show that human individual and collective reactions to threat are primarily affiliative. Indeed, far from leading to the breakdown of the social fabrics, the presence of a common threat can strengthen social bonds. WIREs Cogn Sci 2015, 6:209-219. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1344 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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... Yet, among the many problems individuals may encounter in their lives, and which may give rise to the generation of more or less creative solutions on their part, we find the problems encountered in emergency situations. These cover a wide variety of situations, both benign (e.g.meeting a close deadline) and graver (natural disasters, fire emergency, assisting a person in deadly danger, or surviving or escaping a terrorist attack; e.g., Dezecache, 2015;Dezecache et al., 2021). Taking a decision in emergency situations is a problem to solve, with specific time constraints and a particular motivation to find a way to deal with the situation (e.g., in the context of a fire emergency, one needs to find a way to optimize evacuation and engage in a viable strategy). ...
... Indeed, the previously described diversity of these situations should not distract from the fact that such situations are generally described as combining in an uncertainty setting, both threat and time pressure (van de Walle & Turoff, 2008). Emergency situations are therefore particular contexts in which constraints such as time pressure and the notion of risk/threat (Dezecache, 2015), and the ambiguous nature of the situation are interwoven (Bastian, 2008). These situations often require that individuals be prepared, that they have been able to learn procedures to counteract these effects. ...
... Recently, research has brought a new light on what has long been a pure ideological debate (Drury, 2018). Indeed, and against the popular (but purely theoretical) view that exposure to danger causes asocial or antisocial behavior (Drury, 2018), research on manmade or natural disasters revealed that under threat, humans rapidly coordinate to develop solutions (e.g., evacuation strategies; Dezecache, 2015). For instance, research with victims of the Bataclan attacks have shown that democratic votes and/or complex evacuation strategies (leg-up to climb up to a roof) could swiftly appear and promote survival. ...
Article
Emergency situations are generally described as combining both threat and time pressure. Creative solutions to deal with such situations are important. The present studies (Ntotal = 1190) investigated how people are able to produce creative solutions in an emergency. Our first study was correlational, and assessed individual creativity and reactions to emergency situations using self-report questionnaires. It was complemented by three experimental studies. In those, critical features of emergency situations were manipulated (i.e., time pressure and/or threat level) to examine their putative impact on individual performance on creative tasks (Alternate Uses Task and Real Life Problem). Three dependent variables systematically qualified individuals’ creative performance: fluency (i.e., the number of ideas proposed), originality (i.e., the average rarity of the ideas proposed), and originality adjusted for fluency (i.e., the rarity of the most original idea proposed). Taken together, the results observed tend to indicate that increasing emergency (i.e., increasing time constraint or threat importance) produced an average reduction in the originality of the ideas proposed. These results complement previously obtained results about the effect of stressful situations on creativity through the distinction made in this paper between two key components of emergency situations, namely time pressure and threat level.
... Moreover, the experimental context would be more unpredictable in presence of several participants but also less controlled (more confounding factors and variability in the data). The second reason is that believing our reactions to be selfish and highly self-preservative in threatening situations is a common thought (Dezecache, 2015). This popular belief posits that, in situations of collective danger, individuals would panic, i.e. they would be subject to an "acute fear reaction, marked by a loss of selfcontrol followed by irrational and anti-social flight behavior" (Quarantelli, 1954). ...
... Yet, among social science studies that have collected and analyzed reports from individuals who actually experienced emergency situations, individual and collective behaviors described in such contexts depict a very different vision: there is in fact a relative absence of collective panic, and a prevalence of pro-social behavior over self-preservative ones (Dezecache, 2015;Drury, 2018;Drury, Cocking, & Reicher, 2009a). The number of examples based on the disaster literature illustrating the maintenance of social bonds is very large and is still growing. ...
... Beyond the technical difficulties of studying social behavior in the laboratory, another reason why the perception and reaction to danger is rarely considered in its social dimension in humans may be related to the persistent belief that our own responses to danger are fundamentally asocial and/or antisocial (Dezecache, 2015). When threatened, humans run for their lives, and may even trample others to access safety (Le Bon, 1895; Quarantelli, 2001). ...
Thesis
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Individual reactions to threat are very often thought as individualistic and antisocial. However, more than fifty years of work in sociology and social psychology indicate that humans favor social strategies when confronted with threat. Indeed, cases of cooperation and mutual aid are often reported in the literature on disasters. To implement such strategies, psychological mechanisms that allow us to process social signals conveyed by others in order to act with them must be in place and these mechanisms must be maintained and even optimized in situations of intense anxiety. Understanding how danger reconfigures how we perceive our social environment and how we represent others and their actions, as well as the incentives of such strategies, is an important theoretical challenge. To tackle this issue, we led 3 studies. In the first one, we validated a within-subject method to induce anxiety in a sustained manner: the threat-of-scream paradigm, which consists in alternating blocks in which participants are at risk of hearing aversive distress screams at any time (threat blocks) with blocks in which they are not exposed to aversive stimuli at all (safe blocks). In a second study, we used this procedure to investigate how co-representation of action (i.e. the ability to automatically integrate the actions of other individuals into our own action plans to facilitate action coordination) is impacted under threat. Results showed that co-representation (assessed by measuring the magnitude of the classical Social Simon Effect) is maintained under threat contexts, and seems to be particularly boosted when participants are exposed to danger near safe partners. Our results suggest that the potential function of co-representing others’ actions could be to promote social strategies essential for one’s own survival. Finally, the third study addressed how facial displays of fear are perceived under threat. Indeed, depending on their associated gaze direction, they can either be appraised as signaling the presence of a potential threat in the surrounding environment (averted gaze), or as a signal of distress and potential need of help (direct gaze). Using a categorization task, we investigated if danger-related or distress-related signals were prioritized under the threat-of-scream procedure. We observed that the appraisal of danger-related signals transmitted by facial displays of fear is increased under threat contexts, with no impact on the appraisal of distress signals. Altogether, our results suggest that while social strategies are maintained under threat, they might be sustained by self-preservatives motives.
... Introduction Popular belief holds that danger brings out the worst in us: people panic and display antisocial behavior [1][2][3]. In fact, research based on testimonies from survivors to a diversity of disasters has shown that socially supportive responses prevail in life-and-death situations [1,2,[4][5][6][7]. ...
... Introduction Popular belief holds that danger brings out the worst in us: people panic and display antisocial behavior [1][2][3]. In fact, research based on testimonies from survivors to a diversity of disasters has shown that socially supportive responses prevail in life-and-death situations [1,2,[4][5][6][7]. People reassure one another, help the injured and provide others with critical information. ...
... Studies have shown that supportive behaviors are common in life-and-death circumstances [1,2,[4][5][6][7]11]. Our own data corroborate those findings by showing that supportive actions were commonly reported by people who were hostages in a mass shooting. ...
Article
Full-text available
Reactions to danger have been depicted as antisocial but research has shown that supportive behaviors (e.g., helping injured others, giving information or reassuring others) prevail in life-threatening circumstances. Why is it so? Previous accounts have put the emphasis on the role of psychosocial factors, such as the maintenance of social norms or the degree of identification between hostages. Other determinants, such as the possibility to escape and distance to danger may also greatly contribute to shaping people’s reactions to deadly danger. To examine the role of those specific physical constraints, we interviewed 32 survivors of the attacks at ‘Le Bataclan’ (on the evening of 13-11-2015 in Paris, France). Consistent with previous findings, supportive behaviors were frequently reported. We also found that impossibility to egress, minimal protection from danger and interpersonal closeness with other crowd members were associated with higher report of supportive behaviors. As we delved into the motives behind reported supportive behaviors, we found that they were mostly described as manifesting cooperative (benefits for both interactants) or altruistic (benefits for other(s) at cost for oneself) tendencies, rather than individualistic (benefits for oneself at cost for other(s)) ones. Our results show that supportive behaviors occur during mass shootings, particularly if people cannot escape, are under minimal protection from the danger, and feel interpersonal closeness with others. Crucially, supportive behaviors underpin a diversity of motives. This last finding calls for a clear-cut distinction between the social strategies people use when exposed to deadly danger, and the psychological motivations underlying them.
... Our connection to the rest of humankind has been at the forefront of our minds in recent years, made prominent by the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic. Akin to observed social outcomes of other social crises or disasters (1)(2)(3), the pandemic initially created feelings of community (e.g., clapping for the National Health Service in the United Kingdom or communal singing on balconies in Italy) and opportunities to unite more strongly with close social circles of family and friends, as well as with extended groups such as one's country. Still, repeated, lengthy lockdowns during the pandemic led to increased social isolation and distress for many people (4)(5)(6), and reports of growing prejudice, hostility toward outside groups, and sociopolitical polarization abounded in the first year of the pandemic (7,8). ...
... Research into both disaster psychology and health psychology offers a wealth of evidence demonstrating how social bonds with close circles of friends and family provide support and direction during challenging times. For instance, during tornadoes or fire emergencies, people wait for and look up to loved ones to decide how to behave and whether to flee or not (3). When critical life events occur, such as a heart failure (26) or stroke (27), people are more likely to make healthy lifestyle changes if they have deep bonds with their close social circles. ...
Article
Full-text available
At times of turmoil, such as during disasters, social crises, or pandemics, our social bonds can be key to receiving support and gaining certainty about the right course of action. In an analysis combining two global datasets (N = 13,264) collected during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study examined how social bonds with close social circles (i.e., family and friends) and extended groups (i.e., country, government, and humanity) relate to engagement in health behaviors and psychological well-being. Results revealed that only family bonding was associated with self-reported engagement in health behaviors. Being strongly bonded with both close circles and extended groups predicted less anxiety and depression and better well-being, particularly for those who were bonded with more groups. These findings highlight that close and extended social bonds offer different sources of support and direction during the most challenging of circumstances and that continuous investment is needed to forge and maintain both.
... Our connection to the rest of humankind has been at the forefront of our minds in recent years, made prominent by the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic. Akin to observed social outcomes of other social crises or disasters (1)(2)(3), the pandemic initially created feelings of community (e.g., clapping for the National Health Service in the United Kingdom or communal singing on balconies in Italy) and opportunities to unite more strongly with close social circles of family and friends, as well as with extended groups such as one's country. Still, repeated, lengthy lockdowns during the pandemic led to increased social isolation and distress for many people (4)(5)(6), and reports of growing prejudice, hostility toward outside groups, and sociopolitical polarization abounded in the first year of the pandemic (7,8). ...
... Research into both disaster psychology and health psychology offers a wealth of evidence demonstrating how social bonds with close circles of friends and family provide support and direction during challenging times. For instance, during tornadoes or fire emergencies, people wait for and look up to loved ones to decide how to behave and whether to flee or not (3). When critical life events occur, such as a heart failure (26) or stroke (27), people are more likely to make healthy lifestyle changes if they have deep bonds with their close social circles. ...
Article
Full-text available
At times of turmoil, such as during disasters, social crises, or pandemics, our social bonds can be key to receiving support and gaining certainty about the right course of action. In an analysis combining two global datasets (N = 13,264) collected during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study examined how social bonds with close social circles (i.e., family and friends) and extended groups (i.e., country, government, and humanity) relate to engagement in health behaviors and psychological well-being. Results revealed that only family bonding was associated with self-reported engagement in health behaviors. Being strongly bonded with both close circles and extended groups predicted less anxiety and depression and better well-being, particularly for those who were bonded with more groups. These findings highlight that close and extended social bonds offer different sources of support and direction during the most challenging of circumstances and that continuous investment is needed to forge and maintain both.
... If crowd members influence each other, it is within small groups of people who know each other, who have joined the crowd together, and who thus likely meet the benevolence and competence conditions that characterize emotional vigilance (Aveni, 1977;Drury, 2018;Drury et al., 2020;Johnson et al., 1994;McPhail & Wohlstein, 1983;Stott et al., 2018;Templeton et al., 2018). Instead of crowds being subject to irrational panic or bloodlust, we consistently observe that (i) if anything, people do not panic enough (Dezecache, 2015), (ii) even under terrible circumstances, people often engage in prosocial behavior instead of panicking (Dezecache, 2015;Dezecache et al., 2020;Drury, 2018;Drury et al., 2009aDrury et al., , 2009bJohnson, 1987;Mawson, 2005Mawson, , 2017, (iii) violent crowds tend to be quite discerning in how they exert violence, in a way that fits with the prior goals of at least some crowd members (e.g., Barrows, 1981;Rudé, 1967) . Although much remains to be understood about the behavior of crowds, what we know of them is consistent with the idea that humans are endowed with mechanisms of emotional vigilance, mechanisms which preclude the "contagious transports, irresistible currents of passion, epidemics of credulity" feared by nineteenth century crowd psychologists (Taine, 1876, p. 241). ...
... If crowd members influence each other, it is within small groups of people who know each other, who have joined the crowd together, and who thus likely meet the benevolence and competence conditions that characterize emotional vigilance (Aveni, 1977;Drury, 2018;Drury et al., 2020;Johnson et al., 1994;McPhail & Wohlstein, 1983;Stott et al., 2018;Templeton et al., 2018). Instead of crowds being subject to irrational panic or bloodlust, we consistently observe that (i) if anything, people do not panic enough (Dezecache, 2015), (ii) even under terrible circumstances, people often engage in prosocial behavior instead of panicking (Dezecache, 2015;Dezecache et al., 2020;Drury, 2018;Drury et al., 2009aDrury et al., , 2009bJohnson, 1987;Mawson, 2005Mawson, , 2017, (iii) violent crowds tend to be quite discerning in how they exert violence, in a way that fits with the prior goals of at least some crowd members (e.g., Barrows, 1981;Rudé, 1967) . Although much remains to be understood about the behavior of crowds, what we know of them is consistent with the idea that humans are endowed with mechanisms of emotional vigilance, mechanisms which preclude the "contagious transports, irresistible currents of passion, epidemics of credulity" feared by nineteenth century crowd psychologists (Taine, 1876, p. 241). ...
Book
Although emotional displays have long been considered as mere read-outs of the affective state of agents, recent studies and modern evolutionary thinking instead suggest that they should be characterized as proper communicative signals. This implies that emotional displays have evolved to be used strategically, to serve the senders' interests. However, for these signals to be stable, they must also benefit receivers. What guarantees that emotional signals are beneficial for both emitters and observers? In this chapter, we review evidence showing that humans are equipped with mechanisms that evolved to evaluate emotional displays and their sources, so as to minimize the risk of being fooled. We called these mechanisms 'emotional vigilance,' following the 'epistemic vigilance' mechanisms used in ostensive communication. Emotional vigilance, we argue, is part of the human cognitive make-up, and we outline empirical avenues to best elucidate its features.
... Our connection to the rest of humankind has been at the forefront of our minds in recent years, made prominent by the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic. Akin to observed social outcomes of other social crises or disasters (1)(2)(3), the pandemic initially created feelings of community (e.g., clapping for the National Health Service in the United Kingdom or communal singing on balconies in Italy) and opportunities to unite more strongly with close social circles of family and friends, as well as with extended groups such as one's country. Still, repeated, lengthy lockdowns during the pandemic led to increased social isolation and distress for many people (4)(5)(6), and reports of growing prejudice, hostility toward outside groups, and sociopolitical polarization abounded in the first year of the pandemic (7,8). ...
... Research into both disaster psychology and health psychology offers a wealth of evidence demonstrating how social bonds with close circles of friends and family provide support and direction during challenging times. For instance, during tornadoes or fire emergencies, people wait for and look up to loved ones to decide how to behave and whether to flee or not (3). When critical life events occur, such as a heart failure (26) or stroke (27), people are more likely to make healthy lifestyle changes if they have deep bonds with their close social circles. ...
Preprint
At times of turmoil – such as during natural disasters, social upheavals or pandemics – our social bonds can be key to receiving support and gaining certainty about the right course of action. In an analysis combining two global datasets (N= 13,264) collected during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study examined how social bonds with close social circles (i.e., family, friends) and extended groups (i.e., country, government, humanity) relate to engagement in health behaviours and psychological wellbeing. Results revealed that only family bonding promoted engagement in health behaviours. Being strongly bonded with both close circles and extended groups predicted less anxiety and depression and better wellbeing, particularly for those who were bonded with a greater number of groups. These findings highlight that close and extended social bonds offer different sources of support and direction during challenging circumstances, and that continuous investment is needed to forge and maintain both.
... Social alignment has the potential for bringing people together under a new set of behavioural norms during a period of high threat and uncertainty [5]. Sharing common experiences during challenging times (as captured in the phrase "We're all in it together!") is a strong catalyst for forging social alignment and cohesion [19][20][21], which can be rewarding [22] and lead to better wellbeing [23][24][25][26]. Can, then, pandemic guidelines boost wellbeing, in contrast to the background expectation that social isolation would have negative effects? ...
... Social alignment was marked by people behaving more similarly to others around them, sharing experiences and responsibility. Pre-pandemic literature shows that social alignment through behavioural similarity and shared experiences is associated with increased social support, cohesion and wellbeing [19,24]. Further, people are more likely to relinquish individual responsibility about decisions in threatening and uncertain situations, which is associated with reduced stress [53]. ...
Article
Full-text available
Background In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, most countries implemented physical distancing measures. Many mental health experts warned that through increasing social isolation and anxiety, these measures could negatively affect psychosocial wellbeing. However, socially aligning with others by adhering to these measures may also be beneficial for wellbeing. Methods We examined these two contrasting hypotheses using cross-national survey data (N = 6675) collected fortnightly from participants in 115 countries over 3 months at the beginning of the pandemic. Participants reported their wellbeing, perceptions of how vulnerable they were to Covid-19 (i.e., high risk of infection) and how much they, and others in their social circle and country, were adhering to the distancing measures. Results Linear mixed-effects models showed that being a woman, having lower educational attainment, living alone and perceived high vulnerability to Covid-19 were risk factors for poorer wellbeing. Being young (18–25) was associated with lower wellbeing, but longitudinal analyses showed that young people’s wellbeing improved over 3 months. In contrast to widespread views that physical distancing measures negatively affect wellbeing, results showed that following the guidelines was positively associated with wellbeing even for people in high-risk groups. Conclusions These findings provide an important counterpart to the idea that pandemic containment measures such as physical distancing negatively impacted wellbeing unequivocally. Despite the overall burden of the pandemic on psychosocial wellbeing, social alignment with others can still contribute to positive wellbeing. The pandemic has manifested our propensity to adapt to challenges, particularly highlighting how social alignment can forge resilience.
... One really persistent belief about human reaction under threat is that our own responses to danger are fundamentally asocial and/or antisocial (Dezecache, 2015). When threatened, humans run for their lives, and may even trample others to access safety (Le Bon, 1895;Quarantelli, 2001). ...
... This is in line with converging evidence from fieldwork (Dezecache, 2015; Dezecache et al., 2020; Drury et al., 2009;Fahy & Proulx, 2009;Mawson, 2005) , and behavioral research (e.g. Margittai et al., 2015;Tomova et al., 2020;von Dawans et al., 2012;von Dawans et al., 2019) that show that primary reactions to anticipated or experienced threats are social and affiliative rather than asocial and/or antisocial (Dezecache, 2015). We propose that affiliative tendencies under threat could be associated with the maintenance of self-other integration, an ability which could be crucial for survival by facilitating efficient action coordination (Török, Pomiechowska, Csibra, & Sebanz, 2019), cooperation and decisions (Schwenke, Dshemuchadse, Vesper, Bleichner, & Scherbaum, 2017;Wahn, Czeszumski, Labusch, Kingstone, & König, 2020) with others. ...
Article
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Several studies have shown that individuals automatically integrate the actions of other individuals into their own action plans, thus facilitating action coordination. What happens to this mechanism in situations of danger? This capacity could either be reduced, in order to allocate more cognitive resources for individualistic actions, or be maintained or enhanced to enable cooperation under threat. In order to determine the impact of the perception of danger on this capacity, two groups of participants carried out, in pairs, the Social Simon task, which provides a measure of co-representation. The task was performed during so-called 'threat blocks' (during which participants could be exposed at any time to an aversive stimulus) and so-called 'safety blocks' (during which no aversive stimulation could occur). In a first group of participants, both individuals were exposed at the same time to threat blocks. In a second group, only one of the two participants was exposed to them at a time. Our results indicate that co-representation, an important cognitive mechanism for cooperation, (i) is preserved in situations of danger; and (ii) may even be increased in participants who are confronted alone to threat but in the presence of a safe partner. Contrarily to popular belief, danger does not shut down our capacities for social interaction.
... Experimental studies manipulating the salience of death-related threats consistently demonstrate that individuals react by "clinging" to members of their network (e.g., Castano, 2004), by increasing their adherence to social norms and collective beliefs (Pyszcsynski, 2015) and by displaying aggressive behavioral patterns toward distant others (Maoz & McCauley, 2008). Various deadly threats (e.g., natural disasters, terror attacks) have been found to motivate individuals toward affiliating more with others (Castano, Yzerbyt, & Palatino, 2004;Dezecache, 2015;Strümpfer, 1970), to seek out psychological identification with relatives (or fellow citizens, see Moskalenko, McCauley, & Rozin, 2006), and even to increase accessibility in mind of attachment figures (Mikulincer, Gillath, & Shaver, 2002). ...
... Death-related stimuli increase individuals' adherence to social norms and beliefs and-as a consequence-increased sanction of deviants (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1990). This general pattern has received a lot of empirical support, from more than three decades of research investigating and corroborating effects of death-related stimuli upon individuals' social-cognitive and behavioral reactions (Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010;Castano, 2004;Dezecache, 2015). ...
Article
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Exposure to death-related threats, thoughts and cues (actual or anticipated death of conspecifics, including oneself) remain powerful stressors across primate species, including humans. Accordingly, a pervasive issue in psychology pertains to the kind of social–cognitive responses exposure to deadly threats generates. To this day, psychological models of reactions to death-related threats remain underspecified, especially with regards to modern evolutionary theory. Research on both humans and nonhuman primates’ reactions to death-related threats highlights a general tendency of human and nonhuman primates to “cling to the group” and to display increased social motivation in the face of death and deadly events (predator attacks, disasters, terror attacks. . .). Given the adaptive value of social networks, which provide individuals with resources, mating pool and support, we propose the existence of an evolved mechanism to explain these affiliative responses. In particular, we propose a “conspecific loss compensation mechanism” (CLCM) that actively keeps track of and compensates for threats to the integrity of one’s social network. In the face of death-related cues signaling a danger for one’s social network, or actual conspecific loss, CLCM triggers proportional affiliative responses by a process labeled compensatory socialization. After reviewing existing evidence for the CLCM, we discuss its plausibility, parsimonious character, and explanatory power of the diversity of responses observed among threatened and grieving individuals. We also formulate clear and novel predictions to be tested in future research.
... Schachter [20] showed that contact and affiliation with others reduce uncertainty and related anxiety. Affiliative and contact-seeking behaviors are also very common among populations in emergency situations [21][22][23][24][25] or people exposed to a threatening stimulus [22]. Such affiliative behaviors could be tightly linked to social comparison processes, whereby being and comparing oneself to others enable more certainty about the situation and optimal behavioral conduct. ...
Article
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Affiliation is a basic human need, especially during difficult times. To what extent did the need to affiliate limit our capacity to abide by health guidelines, in particular regarding social distancing, during the COVID-19 pandemic? We investigated this issue using questionnaire data from two samples of the French population collected during the first French lockdown (April-May 2020). We found that in men, higher social comparison orientation (sensitivity to the needs of others and inclination to help) and higher perceived threat increased the frequency of reported affiliative activities. At the same time, men’s reported affiliative activities were associated with a lower reported intention to abide by lockdown and protective measures and lower levels of reported compliance. This pattern was not found in women. The women in our samples, as has been observed elsewhere, were largely compliant, potentially precluding any effects of affiliative needs. Basic though they may seem, affiliative needs and reported affiliative activities may have played a significant role in the implementation of sanitary guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
... "Sheep," or "sheeple," as coined by Palau-Sampio (2021), comes with the connotation of herd animals that are docile, compliant, easily persuaded, and inclined to instinctually follow the crowd without critical consideration. Similar to other social animals such as sheep, birds, and fish (Couzin & Krause, 2003), humans often seek out the safety of the group when feeling threatened (Dezecache, 2015). In the case of humans, safety in numbers is not only expressed in terms of not wanting to stand out visually or spatially but also in terms of adopting viewpoints, attitudes, and behaviors that are considered to be morally correct and accepted in a population (Maher et al., 2023). ...
Article
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Against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, this article undertakes a critical evaluation of a series of shortcomings of the view of conspiracy theories that is predominant among scholars and the general public. Reviewing numerous studies on the topic, we critically assess: (a) how justified the claim is that we are in a conspiracy-thinking emergency, (b) how the label of conspiracy theorist can be weaponized to delegitimize heterodox views, and (c) the practical consequences, for academic research and the well-functioning of democracies, of unpopular ideas being labeled as conspiratorial. The empirical sources reviewed here suggest that beliefs in conspiracy theories have not increased over time and are less consequential than commonly believed, even in times of a global pandemic. Instead, the concept of conspiracy theory has become more prevalent and its derogatory connotation evokes a stigma that tilts the democratic playing field against dissenting viewpoints. The stigmatization and political leveraging of this notion, we argue, lead to biases not only in the public discussion on various sensitive topics but also in the academic literature on conspiracy theories themselves. We analyze these academic blind spots in light of the diminishing political diversity in academia and recent perspectives on scientific censorship. We propose to complement the research on conspiracy theorists with an analysis of individuals at the opposite end of the spectrum, who are inclined to systematically trust institutional authorities and are highly prejudiced against heterodox opinions. Proposed solutions include promoting balanced news coverage, fostering critical thinking through debates, and piercing information bubbles to provide access to diverse perspectives.
... In contrast to the previously reviewed ndings, alternative historical and empirical evidence suggests that threatening situations increase a liation 21 , implying a potential negative relationship between perceived societal threat and perceived minority threat. Research analyzing past disasters and mass-emergencies have shown that those events often create shared goals 22 , therefore being associated with social cohesion, cooperation and prosocial orientation across groups in society [23][24][25] . Furthermore, international threat from China and Russia towards the U.S. has been associated with lowered animosity between American Democrats and Republicans 26 . ...
Preprint
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Societies are often comprised of majority group members who feel threatened by minorities which, in return, are denied equal rights. How do perceived societal threats, that impact both majorities and minorities, influence perceived minority threat and the support for their rights? We utilized the February 2021 Myanmar coup – which has been perceived as threatening by most majority and minority citizens – to examine this question in a three-wave cross-sectional survey. One wave was conducted before the coup. The second (immediately after) and third (one year after) were aimed to understand short and long-term changes in perceived minority threat following the coup. Perceived minority threat decreased after the coup with increased perceived societal threat (wave 2) and increased back again when perceived societal threat diminished (wave 3). Perceived minority threat was also associated with higher support for minority rights. Our results reveal the dynamic nature of group-relevant threats using a unique non-WEIRD sample.
... In further exploring and comparing the three contagious episodes, I find it helpful to draw on elements of social psychologist Le Bon's influential and controversial work from 1895, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (Le Bon 2001). Le Bon has been criticized for a lack of scientific legitimacy (Dezecache 2015), for conservative bias in discrediting society's lower classes (Bramson 1961), and for mainly associating crowd behavior with manipulative and destructive purposes. However, elements from the work of Le Bon and other early crowd theorists like Tarde (1903) are still used and can add new dimensions to contemporary debates, especially their "emphasis on irrationality and plastic subjectivities" (Borch 2006, 98). ...
... Selfish behaviors were found to be rare, and mutual helping was more common during mass emergency situations. There will be pro-social behaviors among pedestrians, and people will take the initiative to help injured pedestrians [38]. Therefore, the pedestrian will help the injured pedestrians with a certain probability h P if a pedestrian sees an injured pedestrian on the way to the rescuer. ...
Article
Most evacuation processes require the presence of people outside the scene, such as firefighters, to assist the trapped individuals to evacuate. This paper establishes an extended model for crowd evacuation considering rescue behavior. In the model, rescuers enter from the exit, approach the hazard source, and search for the injured individual. According to the physical condition of the injured pedestrian, there are two rescue methods: supporting or carrying the injured persons on their backs. Persons trapped in a room are evacuated by walking or crawling depending on their health condition, and healthy persons will rescue the surrounding crawling and evacuated individuals with a certain probability. Simulation results demonstrate that during the evacuation process considering rescue behavior: (1) The presence of rescuers improves evacuation efficiency. When the number of rescuers exceeds a certain threshold, the efficiency of evacuation will begin to decline. However, the evacuation efficiency with rescuers is still better than when there are no rescuers. (2) Increasing the possibility of pedestrian mutual assistance can improve evacuation efficiency. However, the effect of pedestrian mutual assistance probability on evacuation has a critical value. (3) The greater the distance from the hazard source to the exits, the smaller is the effect of the hazard source on evacuation. (4) when the total width of all exits is the same, the evacuation efficiency of two exits is higher than that of a single exit. The model and overall simulation results can help to develop different evacuation strategies and improve search and rescue plans according to specific scenes.
... Solidarity and prosocial behavior is reported in such circumstances. [4] Under panic situations, a drive to help others is observed. Such situations lead to the adoption of a common social identity which promotes prosocial behavior. ...
... Im Großen und Ganzen jedoch, das ist in verschiedenen Studien bestätigt worden, zeigen Menschen unter einer massiven Bedrohung eher pro-soziales und solidarisches Verhalten [272]. Während der Pandemie im Frühjahr 2020 war dies an vielen Stellen sichtbar. ...
... The pandemic could well be associated with an increase in prosociality among inhabitants of the same country -including refugees who form the same group of 'COVID-19 victims'. This is also consistent with the well-established finding that human reactions to threats typically involve increased prosocial behavior among communities (Dezecache, 2015). Thus, we argue that whenever possible, research investigations of societal threat effects (including pandemics) on intergroup attitudes should integrate insights from the social and common ingroup identity models. ...
Article
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The COVID-19 pandemic, as a global threat to humanity, is likely to instigate a variety of collective responses in the society. We examined, for the first time, whether the COVID-19 threat perception is related to attitudes towards Syrian refugees in Turkey, theorizing a dual pathway whereby pandemic induced threat would relate to both pro- and anti-immigrant feelings. Drawing upon integrated threat theory and models of collective-threat regulation, we expected that pandemic threat would lead to more exclusionary outgroup attitudes through increased immigrant threat, whereas we argued that perceived COVID-19 threat would promote inclusionary attitudes through creating a common ingroup in the face of a global threat. Using online search volume data at the province level (Study 1, N = 81) and self-reporting measures at the individual level (Study 2, N = 294), we found that the COVID-19 threat was directly associated with more negative attitudes towards refugees (Study 1 and 2). Study 2 further revealed indirect positive (through a sense of common identity) and negative (through perceptions of immigrant threat) links between COVID-19 threat perception and outgroup attitudes. These results highlight the importance of integrating threat regulation and social identity perspectives when assessing the implications of pathogen-related threats.
... Despite such panic and selfish behavior of animal kingdom are very common in nature deep routed in them along with other evolutionary responses such as fight-or-flight to any dangerous situations, people are seemingly more inclined to seek social connections and affiliation even in time of potential threat of own death (Dezecache et al., 2020). Our primary response to a dangerous or stressful situation is to seek contacts and become more cooperative rather than become selfish (Dezecache, 2015;Drury, 2018;Mawson, 2005Mawson, , 2017Morrison, 2016;El Zein et al., 2019). We are derived to help others in times of danger, threat, and anxiety rather than to be selfish and focused and to protect only our own selfish interest at the cost of others (Dezecache et al., 2020). ...
Article
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Authorities and policymakers have been advocating people to follow the traditional personal protective measures (e.g., social distancing) to avoid COVID-19 disease and to reduce its spread further. Based on terror management theory (TMT) and individuals’ bounded rationality (BR), this study designs a conceptual framework to examine psychological limitations of people for obeying the experts’ instructions—particularly, social distancing—during the pandemic. This is because, contrary to “social distancing,” humans subconsciously use centuries-old defense mechanisms—seeking close relationships, validation or modification of cultural worldviews, and enhancement of self-esteem—by “social gatherings” for the sake of buffering their own paralyzing terror of death in time of a large scale mortality salience (e.g., COVID-19). This study argues that in pandemics in which diseases spread due to human interactions, societies need to trade-off between reducing human or economic losses by imposing immediate stringent restrictions on people movements (e.g., lockdowns) versus mitigating pandemic related psychological or mental issues by allowing them to use anxiety reduction buffering mechanisms (e.g., social gatherings). By studying people’s recent responses to the COVID-19 outbreak and given their BR, this study proposes that governments’ interventions are needed to curtail the disease spreading and its associated costs further. In addition, several recommendations for interventions are suggested.
... It may not be clear why this all happening at the moment, but it will serve us well in the future and in ways that we may not even realize. In fact, research demonstrates that during periods of crisis, people tend to act in solidarity and turn toward each other with a sense of togetherness (Dezecache, 2015). This is the time to be authentic storytellers, account for these challenges, and be candid about what we need to do to overcome them. ...
Article
... [22,26] Civil unrest, rioting, and violence Widespread sickness, debility, and death during pandemics evoke prosocial, affiliative, supportive, behaviors in the form of mutual aid such as running community kitchens, ambulance services, or disposal of dead bodies. [27] However, civil unrest or riots have sometimes erupted during pandemics. [28] There are numerous examples of groups of citizens clashing violently with health workers, due to fears that the health workers were harming rather than helping them. ...
Article
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Review of effects of COVID 19 on mental health
... Im Großen und Ganzen jedoch, das ist in verschiedenen Studien bestätigt worden, zeigen Menschen unter einer massiven Bedrohung eher pro-soziales und solidarisches Verhalten [272]. Während der Pandemie im Frühjahr 2020 war dies an vielen Stellen sichtbar. ...
Book
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Das Buch rekonstruiert die Implementierung des Lockdowns als Bekämpfungsstrategie der Covid-19-Pandemie im Frühjahr 2020 in den Ländern des globalen Nordens aus einer sozialwissenschaftlichen Perspektive. Auf der Basis zahlreicher empirischer Studien wird die These vertreten, dass der Lockdown zwar nicht notwendig, aber unvermeidbar war. Zentrales Problem in nahezu allen Ländern war die mangelnde Vorbereitung auf ein solches Ereignis, und dies obwohl wissenschaftliche und staatliche Stellen immer wieder auf die Gefahr hingewiesen hatten. Zusätzlich zu den biologischen und epidemiologischen Dynamiken entwickelten sich psychologische und gesellschaftliche Dynamiken, welche kaum eine andere Option als umsetzbar erscheinen liessen.
... It is natural to assume that pedestrians trust and follow guidance [32] due to the desire to cooperate with managers in an emergency [33,34] . Because the leaders have complete knowledge of the environment [35] , it is easy to transmit guidance information, including escape direction and exit positions, to their followers through voice and gesture communication. ...
Article
Guidance is an efficient crowd management measure used to save lives in emergencies because it can reduce the disorientation of pedestrians. This study investigates an optimal guidance strategy for large-scale crowd evacuations. To increase computational efficiency, a pedestrian cell transmission model is extended to create a rapid simulation of guided crowd dynamics. To solve the conflicts between the limited guidance capacity and the desire to improve evacuation efficiency, a strategic guidance model is proposed, which generates a leader location and exit selection plan. A simulation algorithm is proposed to integrate a pedestrian following model and strategic guidance model based on the follower-leader interaction. Finally, a hybrid multiscale approach for modeling guided crowd evacuations is established to evaluate the performance of the guidance strategy. The experimental results show that the required CPU time of the proposed model is much less than that of the microscopic models. Because the number of leaders is minimized and the exit is selected by taking both risk and congestion into account, the obtained guidance strategy can realize the full use of guidance capacity, information confusion reduction and uniform exit usage, all of which contribute to a reduction in evacuation time.
... Selain kriminalitas, pembatasan mobilitas selama pandemi dapat memberikan efek tidak langsung terhadap potensi terjadinya dua permasalahan keamanan serius, yaitu kerusuhan dan terorisme. Walaupun sejumlah penelitian menunjukkan adanya kecenderungan peningkatan prilaku prososial masyarakat selama masa pandemi (Dezecache, 2015;Pettigrew, 1983;Schoch-Spana, 2004) tetapi peristiwa kerusuhan juga ditemukan terjadi saat pandemi (Cohn, 2010;Taylor, 2019) jika didukung oleh situasi-situasi tertentu. ...
Article
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Pembatasan mobilitas masyarakat selama masa pandemi Covid-19 dapat memberikan dampak pada keamanan di wilayah urban yang meliputi peningkatan dan perubahan jenis maupun target kriminalitas, potensi kerusuhan sosial, dan kemungkinan terjadinya aksi teror. Dengan memahami potensi-potensi kerawanan dan permasalahan keamanan ini diharapkan dapat disusun rencana tindakan dan antisipasi untuk meningkatkan kewaspadaan baik dari pemerintah, penegak hukum dan otoritas keamanan (polisi, TNI), serta masyarakat ketika dilakukan PSBB ataupun karantina baik pada saat ini maupun di masa mendatang.
... The pandemic could well trigger an increase in prosociality among inhabitants of the same countryincluding immigrants who form the same group of COVID-19 victims. This is also consistent with the well-established finding that human reactions to threat typically involve increased prosocial behavior among communities (Dezecache, 2015). Thus, we argue that whenever possible, research investigations of societal threats' effects (including pandemics) on intergroup attitudes should integrate insights from the social and common ingroup identity models. ...
Preprint
Full-text available
COVID-19 pandemic, as a global threat to humanity, is likely to instigate a variety of collective responses in the society. We examined, for the first time, whether COVID-19 threat perception is related to attitudes towards Syrian immigrants in Turkey, theorizing a dual pathway whereby threat caused by the COVID-19 pandemic would relate to both pro-and anti-immigrant feelings. While drawing upon behavioral immune system theory, we expected that pathogen threat would lead to more exclusionary attitudes; relying on the common ingroup identity model, we predicted that pathogen threat would promote inclusionary attitudes through creating a common ingroup in the face of a global threat. Results from two studies using online search volume data at the province-level (N = 81) and self-report measures at the individual level (N = 294) demonstrated that perceived COVID-19 threat was directly associated with more positive attitudes towards immigrants (Study 1 and 2). Study 2 further revealed indirect positive (through a sense of common identity) and negative (through perceptions of immigrant threat) links between COVID-19 threat perception and attitudes towards immigrants. These results highlight the importance of integrating evolutionary and social identity perspectives when assessing pathogen-related threats. We draw attention to managing the public perceptions of COVID-19 threat which may mitigate the social aftermath of the pandemic.
... For instance, lack of power enhances motivation to connect with others (Lammers et al., 2012;Case, Conlon & Maner, 2015) and cues of low social status have positive effects on pro-social behaviour (Guinote et al., 2015). Moreover, facing threats and stressful situations can enhance affiliative motivation and behaviour (Schachter, 1959;Gump & Kulik, 1997;Dezecache, Grèzes & Dahl, 2017), as bonding with others represents an efficient coping strategy (Taylor, 2006;Dezecache, 2015). The display of constrictive and submissive postures generally occurs in threatening situations and serves to appease aggressive conspecifics by signaling friendly intentions (Schenkel, 1967;de Waal, 1986). ...
Thesis
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Expansive and constrictive body postures serve a primary communicative function in humans and other animals by signalling power and dominance. Whether adopting such “power postures” influences the agent’s own perception and behaviour is currently a subject of debate. In this PhD thesis, I therefore explored effects of adopting power postures on behaviours closely related to the postures’ primary function of social signalling by focusing on responses to faces as particularly salient social signals. In a series of experiments, I utilized reverse correlation methods to visualize mental representations of preferred facial traits. Mental representations of implicitly as well as explicitly preferred faces evoked an affiliative and slightly dominant impression, but revealed no replicable effects of power postures. Two further separate experiments investigated posture effects on the perception of threatening facial expressions, and approach vs. avoidance actions in response to such social signals. While postures did not influence explicit recognition of threatening facial expressions, they affected approach and avoidance actions in response to them. Specifically, adopting a constrictive posture increased the tendency to avoid angry individuals. Finally, an attempt to replicate posture effects on levels of testosterone and cortisol demonstrated that even repeatedly adopting a power posture in a social context does not elicit hormonal changes. Altogether, these findings suggest that our body posture does not influence our mental representations and perception of other people’s faces per se, but could influence our actions in responses to social signals.
... In the past, certainly during wartime, fleeing from the enemy would have been called cowardice (Walshe, 2014). Today, panic may be an entirely rational (albeit unconscious), contagious response to being attacked, or the threat of being attacked by an unknown enemy (Dezecache, 2015). ...
Article
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Humans possess the ability to experience life events and their accompanying emotions, to store these experiences in memory, and to create new behaviour in the future. It is often said that we learn best from our mistakes. However, life-threatening events are different. Extreme experiences can produce recurring memories that can lead to a range of stress disorders. In the present day many of our experiences and memories are being expanded and transformed by technology, especially the Internet. The author was a survivor of the lone terrorist attack on Bastille Day, 2016 in Nice, France. Two years later, this paper poses autobiographical narration to recount the experiences surrounding this incident and its aftermath. The author concurrently analyses the central narrative to juxtapose official accounts, media reports and reflection. The paper thus accomplishes two goals: it presents a first-hand experience of a major terrorist attack, and it compares a conscripted secondary version mediated by technology.
Article
Interviews and surveys are the most commonly used data-gathering and data-generating techniques when investigating human behaviour in emergencies. However, these approaches suffer from several limitations, including potential errors in memory accuracy, a lack of quantitative reliability. This study focuses on a survey performed on participants who had taken part in a stressful experiment. The survey was carried out three months afterwards, asking them to recall their experience. Analysis of this data quantitatively assesses their recall, across multiple different domains. This study observed several differences between experimental and control group participants, as well as differences between participants in VR and Physical experimental groups. However, it observes no increase in confabulation as a result of increased stress. The outcome of this study is to provide insight into the quantitative reliability of interviews and surveys of people involved in emergencies.
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The influence of the authors of the so-called “crowd psychology” on the conventional interpretation of the “irrationality” of the masses in political life has been widely recognized. More recently, Ernesto Laclau has underlined the influence of this tradition on the liberal-democratic views on direct, mass democracy. This conventional interpretation may be reconstructed starting from different intellectual traditions: crowd psychology, properly speaking, its complementary, the “classical” elite theory, and the influence of the positivist analysis of the “criminal” and “psychopathological” behaviors of the masses. However, this influence, far from being confined to the liberal distaste for mass democracy, has been relevant not only for the fascist regimes of the 20th century but also for the contemporary right-wing populist interpretation of the role of the masses in political life, in spite of its purported antielitism.
Article
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A series of aggressive restrictive measures were adopted around the world in 2020–2022 to attempt to prevent SARS-CoV-2 from spreading. However, it has become increasingly clear the most aggressive (lockdown) response strategies may involve negative side-effects such as a steep increase in poverty, hunger, and inequalities. Several economic, educational, and health repercussions have fallen disproportionately on children, students, young workers, and especially on groups with pre-existing inequalities such as low-income families, ethnic minorities, and women. This has led to a vicious cycle of rising inequalities and health issues. For example, educational and financial security decreased along with rising unemployment and loss of life purpose. Domestic violence surged due to dysfunctional families being forced to spend more time with each other. In the current narrative and scoping review, we describe macro-dynamics that are taking place because of aggressive public health policies and psychological tactics to influence public behavior, such as mass formation and crowd behavior. Coupled with the effect of inequalities, we describe how these factors can interact toward aggravating ripple effects. In light of evidence regarding the health, economic and social costs, that likely far outweigh potential benefits, the authors suggest that, first, where applicable, aggressive lockdown policies should be reversed and their re-adoption in the future should be avoided. If measures are needed, these should be non-disruptive. Second, it is important to assess dispassionately the damage done by aggressive measures and offer ways to alleviate the burden and long-term effects. Third, the structures in place that have led to counterproductive policies should be assessed and ways should be sought to optimize decision-making, such as counteracting groupthink and increasing the level of reflexivity. Finally, a package of scalable positive psychology interventions is suggested to counteract the damage done and improve humanity's prospects.
Article
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During the epidemic, social media platforms were frequently used by users to express and spread negative emotions. Under emotional contagion, individual emotions gradually generalized into group emotions. At the same time, the public could not regulate their emotions and lacked access to release them rationally. This study explores the factors influencing the negative emotions' communication among social media users during the COVID-19 epidemic from the perspective of emotion contagion theory to discover the psychological mechanisms among the public. The questionnaire was tested for reliability and validity and then distributed online on Chinese social media platforms, and the data collected were statistically analyzed. The findings show that there are significant differences in negative emotional communication in social media among different age groups; the seven dimensions of deindividuation, risk perception, group identity, group efficacy, event stimulation, event publicness, and emotion contagion all have significant positive effects on users' negative emotional communication. This study aims to raise public awareness of negative emotions and promote the reconstruction and recovery of public mental health in the epidemic era.
Chapter
How do humans behave when exposed to deadly dangers? It is commonly believed that panic and antisocial behaviour are commonplace, but extensive research on this topic has shown this to be wrong. Rather, help and mutual support prevail. In this chapter, Guillaume Dezecache discusses the ongoing debates and provides an overview of his research with survivors of the Bataclan attack on 13 November 2015. He argues that pro-sociality (an orientation towards others) is a core motivation even in the face of deadly danger, and clarifies the conditions in which it is manifested.KeywordsPanicFearCollective threatBataclan attackTerrorismPro-socialityMutual support
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Schon unmittelbar nach Beginn des Corona-Lockdowns wurde über dessen Notwendigkeit diskutiert: War das Virus vielleicht doch »nur« eine harmlose Grippe? Wäre das »Schwedische Modell« eine realistische Alternative auch in anderen Ländern gewesen? Wieso hat die Politik in vielen Ländern das Risiko des größten Wirtschaftseinbruchs seit Jahrzehnten in Kauf genommen? Dirk Richter analysiert die Pandemie-Entwicklung im Frühjahr 2020 sowie deren Hintergründe und kommt zu dem Schluss: Die Maßnahmen wären nicht zwingend notwendig gewesen, aber länger zurückliegende Fehleinschätzungen und aktuelle gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen haben sie unvermeidlich gemacht.
Chapter
Relying on econometric principles and modelling has been the dominant in developing models to forecast demand for tourism services. But this is not necessarily the best approach since such models extrapolate the past into the future through a linear perspective. At the same time, this approach fails to incorporate the dynamic nature of travelers behaviour and choices resulting from various emerging conditions. With this mind, we explain in detail the key limitations of the dominant approach to modelling demand and propose an alternative, fresh view that can improve the accuracy and relevance of the prognosis. We also offer a proposed research design to accommodate the requirements of this fresh approach, while explaining who and how would benefit from my proposed method.
Article
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People have felt afraid during the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), because a virus is an invisible enemy. During the pandemic outbreak, society has become worried about the spread of infections and the shortage of protective equipment. This common fear among the public subsequently deepens each person's fear, increasing their belief in the content reported by the media and thus actively compelling these individuals to engage in the behavior of panic buying. In this study, we explored the effects of the public's risk perception, state anxiety, and trust in social media on the herding effect among individuals. The study was based on an online questionnaire survey and convenience sampling. The results showed that the public's risk perception increased their state anxiety and then deepened their willingness to wait in line for a purchase. In addition, the more people that trust the message delivered by the media, the more actively they will join the queue to buy goods. This study also found that anxiety had a greater impact on the public's willingness to wait for a purchase than trust in social media. Therefore, the top priority for the government should be to reduce the public's state anxiety and then reduce the herding effect.
Article
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has recently spread dramatically worldwide, raising considerable concerns and resulting in detrimental effects on the psychological health of people who are vulnerable to the disease. Therefore, assessment of depression in members of the general public and their psychological and behavioral responses is essential for the maintenance of health. Objective: This study aimed to assess the prevalence of depression and the associated factors among the general public during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Methods: A cross-sectional survey with convenience sampling was conducted from February 11 to 16, 2020, in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. A self-administrated smartphone questionnaire based on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and psychological and behavioral responses was distributed to the general public. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis and multivariate logistic regression analysis were conducted to explore the associated factors of depression.aA cross-sectional survey with convenience sampling was conducted from February 11 to 16, 2020, in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. A self-administrated smartphone questionnaire based on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and psychological and behavioral responses was distributed to the general public. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis and multivariate logistic regression analysis were conducted to explore the associated factors of depression. Results: The prevalence of depression (PHQ-9 score ≥10) among the general public during the COVID-19 pandemic was 182/1342 (13.6%). Regression analysis indicated that feeling stressed, feeling helpless, persistently being worried even with support, never feeling clean after disinfecting, scrubbing hands and items repeatedly, hoarding food, medicine, or daily supplies, and being distracted from work or study were positively associated with depression, while social support and being calm were negatively associated with depression. Conclusions: The general public suffered from high levels of depression during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, COVID-19-related mood management and social support should be provided to attenuate depression in the general public.
Article
Dezecache et al. argue that affiliation and contact-seeking are key responses to danger. These natural social tendencies are likely to hinder the observance of physical distancing during the current pandemic. We need internet access at this time, not only to promote freedom of expression, but also to promote public health.
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Background . The three terms “panic”, “irrationality”, and “herding” are ubiquitous in the crowd dynamics literature and have a strong influence on both modelling and management practices. The terms are also commonly shared between the scientific and nonscientific domains. The pervasiveness of the use of these terms is to the point where their underlying assumptions have often been treated as common knowledge by both experts and lay persons. Yet, at the same time, the literature on crowd dynamics presents ample debate, contradiction, and inconsistency on these topics. Method . This review is the first to systematically revisit these three terms in a unified study to highlight the scope of this debate. We extracted from peer-reviewed journal articles direct quotes that offer a definition, conceptualisation, or supporting/contradicting evidence on these terms and/or their underlying theories. To further examine the suitability of the term herding, a secondary and more detailed analysis is also conducted on studies that have specifically investigated this phenomenon in empirical settings. Results . The review shows that (i) there is no consensus on the definition for the terms panic and irrationality and that (ii) the literature is highly divided along discipline lines on how accurate these theories/terminologies are for describing human escape behaviour. The review reveals a complete division and disconnection between studies published by social scientists and those from the physical science domain and also between studies whose main focus is on numerical simulation versus those with empirical focus. (iii) Despite the ambiguity of the definitions and the missing consensus in the literature, these terms are still increasingly and persistently mentioned in crowd evacuation studies. (iv) Different to panic and irrationality, there is relative consistency in definitions of the term herding, with the term usually being associated with ‘(blind) imitation’. However, based on the findings of empirical studies, we argue why, despite the relative consistency in meaning, (v) the term herding itself lacks adequate nuance and accuracy for describing the role of ‘social influence’ in escape behaviour. Our conclusions also emphasise the importance of distinguishing between the social influence on various aspects of evacuation behaviour and avoiding generalisation across various behavioural layers. Conclusions . We argue that the use of these three terms in the scientific literature does not contribute constructively to extending the knowledge or to improving the modelling capabilities in the field of crowd dynamics. This is largely due to the ambiguity of these terms, the overly simplistic nature of their assumptions, or the fact that the theories they represent are not readily verifiable. Recommendations . We suggest that it would be beneficial for advancing this research field that the phenomena related to these three terms are clearly defined by more tangible and quantifiable terms and be formulated as verifiable hypotheses, so they can be operationalized for empirical testing.
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Background: Adopting expansive vs. constrictive postures related to high vs. low levels of social power has been suggested to induce changes in testosterone and cortisol levels, and thereby to mimic hormonal correlates of dominance behavior. However, these findings have been challenged by several non-replications recently. Despite this growing body of evidence that does not support posture effects on hormone levels, the question remains as to whether repeatedly holding postures over time and/or assessing hormonal responses at different time points would yield different outcomes. The current study assesses these methodological characteristics as possible reasons for previous null-findings. Additionally, it investigates for the first time whether expansive and constrictive postures impact progesterone levels, a suggested correlate of affiliative motives and behavior. By testing the effects of repeated but short posture manipulations in between the blocks of a social task while using a cover story, it further fulfills the conditions previously raised as potentially necessary for the effects to occur. Methods: A total of 82 male participants repeatedly adopted an expansive or constrictive posture for 2 min in between blocks of a task that consisted in categorizing faces based on first impressions. Saliva samples were taken at two different time points in a time window in which hormonal responses to stress, competition and other manipulations are known to be strongest. Results: Neither testosterone and cortisol levels linked to dominance behaviors, nor progesterone levels related to affiliative tendencies, responded differently to adopting expansive as opposed to constrictive postures. The present results suggest that even repeated power posing in a context where social stimuli are task-relevant does not elicit changes in hormone levels.
Thesis
Everyday action decision-making entails to take into account affordances provided by the environment, along with social information susceptible to guide our decisions. But within social contexts conveying potentially threatening information and multiple targets for action, as when entering a subway car, how do we decide very quickly where to sit while gauging the presence of a potential danger? The work conducted during my PhD aimed at investigating action and attentional processes in a realistic social context providing action opportunities. In the first study, spontaneous action choices and kinematics revealed that threat-related angry and fearful displays impact people’s free choice differently, i.e. favoured the selection of actions that avoided angry and approached fearful individuals. The second study further showed that attention was allocated to the space of the scene corresponding to the endpoint of the actions prioritized by those angry and fearful displays. Crucially, the third study evidenced that this effect disappeared when action opportunities were removed from the experimental context. Saccadic behaviour recorded in the fourth study allowed to access the development of attention allocation over time, and crucially revealed that attention was first quickly oriented toward threat before being directed toward the endpoint of the chosen action. Altogether, these findings suggest that action selection modulate attention allocation in response to social threat when embedded within realistic social contexts.
Thesis
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Les menaces sociétales, comme les attaques terroristes, la crise économique ou le réchauffement climatique sont devenues omniprésentes dans notre société en raison de leur extensive diffusion médiatique. La situation de menace, qui agit comme une disruption entre les représentations de l'individu et la réalité, conduit au processus du partage social des émotions (Rimé, 2005) qui constitue le moteur de la propagation des informations menaçantes d'une personne à l'autre et d'un groupe social à l'autre. La présente thèse examine le rôle du temps et de l'espace en tant que deux principales sources de freins à la propagation des informations menaçantes. L'objectif de l'Étude 1 est d'investiguer le sens que les personnes attribuent au terme « menace sociétale », ainsi que de proposer un classement des menaces sociétales actuelles issues de l'actualité médiatique et perçues par les personnes dans le contexte français. L'Étude 2 examine le rôle du temps en tant que frein à la propagation des informations menaçantes dans le contexte suivant l'attentat de Charlie Hebdo à Paris du 7 janvier 2015, en se basant sur le modèle des étapes sociales de coping collectif avec les catastrophes (Pennebaker & Harber, 1993). Puis, l'Étude 3 consiste en une mise à l'épreuve expérimentale du rôle de l'espace social, plus spécifiquement le rôle de l'appartenance groupale, en tant que frein à la propagation des informations porteuses d'une menace terroriste. Les principaux résultats montrent que la fréquence des deux principales composantes du partage social des émotions, c'est-à-dire la parole et l'écoute, diminue dans les deux mois suivant l'attaque terroriste (Étude 2). Puis, l'appartenance groupale des personnes influence le contenu de l'information menaçante transmise à l'interlocuteur (Étude 3). Ces résultats suggèrent que le temps et l'espace social contribueraient à freiner la propagation des informations porteuses d'une menace. Toutefois, de futures recherches devraient se focaliser sur d'autres processus qui permettraient de freiner la propagation des informations menaçantes au sein de la société et d'élucider ainsi la construction du climat socio-émotionnel négatif.
Article
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When entering a subway car affording multiple targets for action, how do we decide, very quickly, where to sit, particularly when in the presence of a potential danger? It is unclear, from existing motor and emotion theories, whether our attention would be allocated toward the seat on which we intend to sit on or whether it would be oriented toward an individual that signals the presence of potential danger. To address this question, we explored spontaneous action choices and attention allocation in a realistic context, where a threat-related signal (an angry or fearful individual) and the target for action in that situation could compete for attentional priority. Results showed that participants chose the actions that avoided angry individuals and were more confident when approaching those with a fearful expression. In addition, covert and overt measures of attention showed a stronger avoidance effect for angry, compared to fearful, individuals. Crucially, these effects of anger and fear on attention allocation required the presence of action possibilities in the scene. Taken together, our findings show that in a realistic context offering competing action possibilities, threat-related distractors shape both action selection and attention allocation accordingly to their social function.
Preprint
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Background. Adopting expansive versus constrictive postures related to high versus low levels of social power has been suggested to induce changes in testosterone and cortisol levels, and thereby to mimic hormonal correlates of dominance behavior. However, these findings have been challenged by several non-replications recently. Although there is thus more evidence against than for such posture effects on hormones, the question remains as to whether repeatedly holding postures over time and/or assessing hormonal responses at different time points would yield different outcomes. The current study assesses these methodological characteristics as possible reasons for previous null-findings. By testing effects of repeated but short posture manipulations in a social context while using a cover-story, it further fulfills the conditions previously raised as potentially necessary for the effects to occur. Methods. 82 male participants repeatedly adopted an expansive or constrictive posture for 2 minutes in between blocks of a task that consisted in categorizing faces based on first impressions. Saliva samples were taken at two different time points in a time window in which hormonal responses to stress, competition and other manipulations are known to be strongest. Results. Neither testosterone and cortisol levels linked to dominance behaviors, nor progesterone levels related to affiliative tendencies, changed from before to after adopting expansive or constrictive postures. The present results establish that even repeated power posing in a context where social stimuli are task-relevant does not elicit changes in hormone levels.
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Significance A large-scale survey of pilgrims on the Hajj to Mecca (also called Makkah) showed that where there is identification with the crowd the negative effect of crowd density on safety is diminished or even reversed: a new finding. The reason that identification with the crowd moderates the effect of density on safety is because crowd identification increases the perception that others will be supportive. This process also helps to explain national differences among pilgrims in feelings of safety during the event. In contrast both to engineering approaches, which neglect crowd psychology, and traditional crowd psychology, which assumes that the crowd is inherently a “problem,” this study shows how the crowd can be part of the solution in crowd safety management.
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Popular representations of crowd behaviour in disasters are often characterised by irrationalist discourses, in particular ‘mass panic’ despite their rejection by current scientific research. This paper reports an analysis of four survivors' accounts of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster to investigate if and how they used the term ‘panic’. Reference to ‘panic’ occurred frequently, but more detailed analysis found that their accounts did not match the classic criteria for ‘mass panic’ (e.g. uncontrolled emotion and selfish behaviour). Indeed, participants referred to ‘orderly’ behaviour, and cooperation, even when they said the threat of death was present. ‘Panic’ was therefore being used as a description of events that was not consistent. A discourse analysis of usage suggests that participants used ‘panic’ not only to convey feelings of fear and distress but also to apportion culpability towards the actions of the police who they considered responsible for the tragedy (as indeed recent independent research has confirmed). It is concluded that the term ‘panic’ is so deeply embedded in popular discourse that people may use it even when they have reason to reject its irrationalist implications. Alternative discourses that emphasise collective resilience in disasters are suggested. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Recent accounts of collective action highlight the importance of psychological empowerment, but conceptualize it simply as a precondition for such action. By contrast, the social identity model (Reicher, 1996, 1997; Stott, 1996) suggests that empowerment is a product as well as a precondition of collective action. However, existing research on the social identity model has merely inferred the emergence of feelings of power rather than shown it empirically. This paper describes a study of a town hall anti-poll tax demonstration, using interviews, written accounts, newspaper accounts, and video evidence. The principal source consisted of interviews with 29 protesters which were subjected to thematic analysis to identify (i) whether and to what extent empowerment took place in the crowd; (ii) features of the intergroup relationship responsible for any such empowerment; and (iii) any normative limits to empowered behavior. The analysis suggests that feelings of power increased among crowd members due to the more inclusive categorization among them brought about by their perceived wholesale illegitimate exclusion from the town hall. Moreover, the empowered action of crowd members was limited by shared definitions of proper practice. The implications of these findings are discussed for studies of collective action, and it is suggested that further research along the present lines is necessary to shed more light on factors leading to the endurance and generalization of the types of empowerment found here.
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Previous research has successfully problematized the pathologizing discourses used to discredit crowd events. However, examples of reactionary crowds can operate rhetorically as an obstacle to a liberatory account of the crowd in history. This article presents an analysis of newspaper accounts of a series of `anti-paedophile' crowd actions which took place in Britain in the summer of 2000. Such accounts characteristically pathologized the crowd not only through use of particular terms and concepts, but also through anecdotes that served as evidence of diminished rationality. The article analyses the rhetorical and ideological functions of these and other constructions identified in the texts, including those offered by participants themselves. A way of talking about the (reactionary) crowd is offered which distinguishes particular crowd ideologies from collective processes per se and which therefore avoids condemning collective action in itself.
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A meta-analytic integration reviews evidence for deindividuation theory as an explanation of collective and antinormative behavior. Deindividuation theories propose a subjective deindividuated state that causes transgression of general social norms. Deindividuation research classically manipulates anonymity, self-awareness, and group size. Results of 60 independent studies showed little support for (a) the occurrence of deindividuated (antinormative) behaviors or (b) the existence of a deindividuated state. Research results were explained more adequately by situation-specific than by general social norms. Analyses indicated that groups and individuals conform more to situation-specific norms when they are "deindividuated." These findings are inconsistent with deindividuation theory but support a social identity model of deindividuation effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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recently, we have begun to explore . . . [the] process of emotional contagion / people's conscious analyses give them a great deal of information about their social encounters / [people] can also focus their attention on their moment-to-moment emotional reactions to others, during their social encounters / this stream of reactions comes to them via their fleeting observations of others' faces, voices, postures, and instrumental behaviors / further, as they nonconsciously and automatically mimic their companions' fleeting expressions of emotion, people also may come to feel as their partners feel / by attending to the stream of tiny moment-to-moment reactions, people can gain a great deal of information on their own and their partners' emotional landscapes begin by defining emotion and emotional contagion and discussing several mechanisms that we believe might account for this phenomenon / review the evidence from a variety of disciplines that "primitive emotional contagion" exists / examine the role of individual differences in emotional contagion / outline some of the broad research questions researchers might profitably investigate (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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This paper illustrates a novel approach to social psychological phenomena, namely the systematic analysis of participants' discourse. Specifically it examines the production of social categories and their organization in discourse through a detailed analysis of the use of the category ‘community’ and the notion of ‘community relations’ in accounts of the ‘St Paul's riot’ of 1980. In the first stage of analysis, the linguistic repertoire making up the category community is outlined, concentrating on variations in accounts of (a) the existence of community over time, (b) its racial composition, (c) the role of metaphors such as harmony and growth. The second stage of analysis shows the way this repertoire is deployed in the achievement of highly contrasting versions of events, concentrating on depictions of the role of the police and the way appropriate responses are specified.
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Accounts from over 90 survivors and 56 witnesses of the 2005 London bombings were analysed to determine the relative prevalence of mass behaviors associated with either psychosocial vulnerability (e.g. 'selfishness', mass panic) or collective resilience (e.g. help, unity). 'Selfish' behaviors were found to be rare; mutual helping was more common. There is evidence for (a) a perceived continued danger of death after the explosions; (b) a sense of unity amongst at least some survivors, arising from this perceived danger; (c) a link between this sense of unity and helping; and (d) risk-taking to help strangers. We suggest a novel explanation for this evidence of 'collective resilience', based on self-categorization theory, according to which common fate entails a redefinition of self (from 'me' to 'us') and hence enhanced concern for others in the crowd.
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This paper presents an analysis for the crowd disaster at the Mihong bridge on 5 February 2004. The analysis includes the description of the whole process of the disaster, some characteristics of the trample, and with the help of SSM (soft systematic methodology) the factors that led to the disaster, etc. Through the detailed analysis, we conclude that the main causes of the disaster are as follows: the poor estimation of the tourist population, dereliction of duties, deficient communication, and the design fault of the bridge as well. To emphasis the significance of the management on the critical points, quantitative analysis of the crowd gathering process of the disaster were carried out by mathematical model and simulation methods, the results of the two methods are approximately the same. In the trample disaster, asphyxia is the main cause of the death. This paper reports the casualties in the fatality, demonstrating the relationship between the casualty constitution and the force created during the crush.
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More than 160 people were killed in a fire in the Beverly Hills Supper Club near Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1977, an incident that appeared to be a classic case of panic involving a breakdown of social order and ruthless competition for exits. This paper analyzes transcripts of police interviews with club patrons to describe flight from the show room in which most of the deaths occurred. The descriptive analysis reveals that escape from the building was initially orderly and non-competitive; however, when escape became urgent, competition for the remaining exit possibilities developed. Even then the behavior did not appear to be in total disregard of social order; social norms and structural ties continued to constrain behavior.
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A common theme in the literature on evacuation compliance is the result of largely social psychological perceptions of risk formed prior to taking the protective action. From this perspective, evacuation is a function of warning recipients corning to define themselves as in danger and believing that fleeing the immediate environment wilt reduce that danger. This paper explores the social psychological and social structural processes that result in such perceptions. In particular, attention is given to identifying perceptions that motivate evacuation, factors that direct perceptual outcomes and the ways in which motivation and perception are translated into action.
Book
How do humans behave when under threat of attack or disaster? How does the social context affect individual behavior? Anthony Mawson provides an illuminating examination of individual and collective behavior under conditions of stress and danger, in response to both natural and manmade threats and disasters. Opening with a question about the interpretation of “mass panic” in combat, the book gradually unfolds into a multidisciplinary analysis of the psychobiological basis of social relationships and the neural organization of motivation and emotion. Mawson provides a comprehensive review and synthesis of the mass panic and disaster literature and offers a social attachment model, that recognizes the fundamentally gregarious nature of human beings and the primacy of attachments. He argues that the typical response to threat and danger is neither fight nor flight, nor social breakdown, but increased affiliation and camaraderie. This book is unique in addressing the behavioral and social aspects of threat and disaster. It will appeal to social scientists across a range of disciplines, to public administrators, and to disaster and public health professionals.
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SUMMARY The word ‘panic’ is frequently used in media accounts and statements of survivors of emergency evacuations and fires, but what does it really mean, is it a phenomenon that actually occurs? This paper first examines the concept from the view of the general public, particularly the media. Definitions of panic behaviour related to emergency response are summarized and evidence of behaviour from actual fire incidents are presented through interview data and case studies. Despite the data demonstrating that panic is a very rare occurrence in fires, the idea of panic and the term continue to be used by the public as well as fire experts. It is therefore necessary to demystify the misconception that panic is an essential element of a fire and identify any scientific justification for continuing to use this concept. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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There has been much debate about the use of certain public order policing tactics in Britain in response to the disorder seen in recent years. This paper explored the use of an indiscriminate public order tactic that has received comparatively less attention, that of crowd dispersal techniques. More specifically, the use of police charges (either by mounted police or on foot) and subsequent collective flight was investigated. An interview study was conducted with 20 participants who experienced such charges at protests in English cities. Thematic analysis of the data found that although participants reported fear and initial crowd scattering, these instinctive responses were quickly replaced by more socialised reactions, such as co-operation with others and an increased sense of collective unity. Furthermore, participants reported greater determination to resist what were considered as illegitimate attacks by the police. This increased collective unity was explained in terms of a shared sense of experience that was similar to that found in previous crowd behaviour research. It was concluded that rather than fragmenting crowds, the tactic of crowd dispersal can unite previously heterogeneous groups to resist further police charges and so may be counter-productive as a public order policing strategy. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Article
Images of group panic and collective chaos are ubiquitous in Hollywood movies, mainstream media and the rhetoric of politicians. But, contrary to these popular portrayals, group panic is relatively rare. In disasters people are often models of civility and cooperation.
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Disaster myths are said to be widespread and consequential. However there has been little research on whether those involved in public safety and emergency response believe them. A survey examined how far police officers, civilian safety professionals, sports event stewards and comparison samples from the public believe the myths 'mass panic', 'civil disorder' and helplessness. Respondents endorsed the first two myths. However they rejected the myth of helplessness and endorsed the view that emergency crowds display resilience. Despite these contradictions in stated beliefs, there was also evidence of ideological coherence: each model of mass emergency behavior (maladaptive versus resilient) was linked to a model of crowd management (coercive and paternalistic versus mass-democratic). The practical implications of these findings are discussed.
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The paper draws together the two separately researched topics - human behavior in fire and human response to informative fire warning systems - computer-based automatic fire detection systems ('intelligent fire alarms) The paper summarizes some salient points reached so far and combines them with observations on first aid fire fighting by the population of the UK, in order to outline a fire protection strategy. Work on human response to fire warning systems is a continuing project. However indications are that the low cost methods being investigated to give information to occupants of a building early in a fire will be sufficiently precise to reduce the need for highly expensive fire protection measures.
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The authors examined the crowd sections of 20 introduction to sociology textbooks, coding them for the presence of seven crowds myths-claims about crowds that have no empirical support and have been rejected by scholars in the field. The number of myths per book ranges from five to one. The authors conclude by making suggestions for rewriting these chapters and for improving the book reviewing process.
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According to reports in the mass media, a fictitious radio broadcast about a future disaster at a nuclear power station at Barsebäck in southern Sweden caused widespread panic flight reactions among the population in the area. A telephone survey of a representative sample (n = 1,089) in combination with unstructured interviews with police and other authorities indicates that no panic flight at all did occur. The results are used to question a popular stereotype about panic behaviour in real or imagined disaster situations, manifesting itself, for instance, in Cantril's classic study The Invasion from Mars (1940), and in later interpretations of that study. In the concluding section the Barsebäck incident is regarded in the light of general sociological theory (van Gennep, Merton, Boorstin). The function common to rites of passage and pseudoevents - to turn a slow process or a structure into a socially manageable event - is analyzed and epitomized in the concept of summary event. The fictitious radio programme under study may be re garded as an unsuccessful negative summary event. The increasing need for institutionalized, socially accepted negative summary events is finally under lined.
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Two models of escape behaviour are contrasted in an analysis of flight from a fire by 128 people in a public building. The ‘panic’ model assumes that escape involves a homogeneous population of individuals concerned with self-preservation, competing with each other for limited exits. The ‘affiliative’ model2 predicts individuals with close psychological ties will attempt to escape in groups of two or more; flight is assumed to involve escape to familiar persons and places. Causal loglinear analysis was used to model the inter-relationships between four variables in a 2 × 2 × 3 × 2 cross-classified categorical table: (A) Group Membership (family/mixed); (B) Group Attachment at Cue (attached/separated); (C) Cue (ambiguous/verbal/unambiguous); (D) Group Affiliation at Exit (affiliated/separated). Associations were found between [BC] and [ABD] indicating strong support for model. In a situation of potential danger ‘separated’ individuals responded more often to ‘ambiguous’ cues. ‘Family’ members who were attached at cue were most likely to be together and ‘mixed’ group members apart when exiting from the building. Family members tried to adopt an optimal strategy for group rather than individual survival.
Article
Of the 150 residential fire fatalities investigated by the State Coroner, Victoria, from mid-1990 to 1995, 132 resulted from 94 fires where the cause was either not deliberate or remained undetermined. Personal and behavioural characteristics of victims and survivors of these fires are examined. The 18 deaths from 15 intentional fires are described separately. Most victims evidenced known risk characteristics, such as being very old or very young, being asleep or being affected by alcohol. Victims under 5 years and over 65 were more likely to be awake and involved with the fire start. Three quarters of those asleep and half of those awake did not move from their original location — the latter were all in direct contact with the flames. In 14 of the 22 single fatality fires with survivors the victims were closer to the fire source. Survivors with risk characteristics and those who were close to the fire were likely to sustain injuries. Sample size is too small to indicate outcome differences between survivors with and without risk characteristics. Identifying individual factors that influence fire starts and outcomes for both victims and survivors is important for modelling human response as well as for targeting safety education. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Article
Crowds occur frequently, usually without serious problems. Occasionally venue inadequacies and deficient crowd management result in injuries and fatalities. Major crowd incidents are described. Extreme crowding results in individual loss of control, and both psychological and physiological problems. A simple model with the acronym "FIST" is proposed to provide a basic understanding of crowd disasters. The acronym elements are defined as the crowd Force (F); the Information (I) upon which the crowd acts; the physical Space (S) involved, both in terms of individual density and larger scale architectural features; and Time (T), the duration of the incident. The model is used to illustrate crowd characteristics and to develop guidelines for the prevention of crowd disasters. It is concluded that real time information and communication are key factors in preventing crowd disasters. The formal certification of crowd manager for venues of 500 persons or more is recommended.
Article
I report evidence showing that panic did not cause the death and injury of numerous young people prior to a concert by the rock group, The Who, at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum in late 1979. An analysis of transcripts of interviews with patrons in attendance and police who were on duty when the deaths occurred reveals that people did not “stampede” over others in their rush to enter the Coliseum as media accounts contend. Instead, participants tried to help others, and most competition that did occur reflected efforts to escape the crush rather than to enter the concert. I conclude that theoretical models of panics or “crazes” within the literature on collective behavior are not very useful in explaining this type of incident.
Article
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
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Anti-predator behaviour in overwintering redshanks on an estuary in south-east Scotland was studied in the context of a very high mortality rate due almost entirely to predation by raptors. Attacks on redshank flocks of different sizes and by different species of raptor were observed frequently. Flocking reduced an individual redshank's probability of being killed by sparrowhawks, Accipiter nisus, and peregrines, Falco peregrinus. Larger flocks were preferentially attacked, but an attack was significantly more likely to succeed on a smaller flock. Within a larger flock a redshank was less at risk through the 'dilution' effect, vigilance effects (which were a direct consequence of flock size) and probably also the 'confusion' effect. A large redshank flock was less likely to fly immediately than a small flock on appearance of a sparrowhawk. Redshanks did not gain any foraging benefits within larger flocks; the number of swallows per unit time remained approximately constant while the number of unsuccessful picks at the ground increased with flock size. Reduced individual risk of predation appeared to be the main reason for flocking.
Article
How accurately can people remember how they felt in the past? Although some investigators hold that emotional memories are resistant to change, we review evidence that current emotions, appraisals, and coping efforts, as well as personality traits, are all associated with bias in recalling past emotions. Bias occurs as memories of emotional states are updated in light of subsequent experience and goals. Biased memories in turn influence future plans and emotions, and may contribute to the formation of enduring personality traits. People's memories for emotions provide highly condensed and accessible summaries of the relevance of past experiences to current goals.
Article
Previous definitions of deindividuation are reviewed and a current conceptualization is offered. The research literature is reviewed under possible antecedents to deindividuation. It is concluded that research has failed to confirm the causal role of deindividuation in releasing antisocial behavior. Research strategies are suggested which will help more quickly to verify or disconfirm the existence and causal role of the construct.
Article
It has been proposed that a major factor underlying the evolution of gregarious behaviour is a reduction in the risk of being attacked by predators1–3. One way in which individuals may gain protection from predators by joining a group is through a simple ‘dilution’ effect—for any one predator attack, the larger the group of prey animals, the smaller is the chance that any particular individual will be the victim. We present here field observations of predation on a marine insect, in which it is possible, for the first time, to quantify the magnitude of the dilution effect and distinguish it from other benefits of group living.
Article
This book presents a new theory of the social group which seeks to explain how individuals become unified into a group and capable of collective behaviour. The book summarizes classic psychological theories of the group, describes and explains the important effects of group membership on social behaviour, outlines self-categorization theory in full and shows how the general perspective has been applied in research on group formation and cohesion, social influence, the polarization of social attitudes, crowd psychology and social stereotyping. The theory emerges as a fundamental new contribution to social psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Advances a social-cognitive theory of the human social group with respect to group formation, the cognitive salience of group membership, and motivational biases for positive self-esteem. It is argued that psychological group membership is more a matter of shared self-definition (i.e., social identification) than cohesive interpersonal relationships and that social categorizations can be internalized as cognitive structures in self conception. When functioning, their basic consequence is the stereotypical minimization of individual differences and the enhancement of perceptual interchangeability between the self and members of the same social category. This consequence produces the distinctive features of intragroup relations, such as mutual cohesiveness, cooperativeness, and uniformity. It is hypothesized that group behavior and relationships are mediated by a cognitive redefinition of the self in terms of shared social category memberships and associated stereotypes. The group was thought of as an adaptive psychological mechanism for "depersonalizing" individual behavior. Commentaries to this approach, as well as the present author's responses, are subsequently submitted. (French abstract) (74 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
An analysis of all existing reports of the psychological aspects of air war with descriptions of the psychological effects of atomic bombing and conventional air attacks. Part I reports reactions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Part II analyzes effects of air war. Part III discusses psychological aspects of civilian defense. 117-item bibliography. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Investigated whether the affiliative model is able to account for the pattern of exit choice behavior in a room on fire. 500 statements from individuals present after a fire in which 50 people died were analyzed. The affiliative model predicts that in a situation of potential entrapment people move toward familiar persons and places. This model of behavior is contrasted with physical science and complementary panic concepts underlying escape route design. These assume a deterministic relationship between the physical availability and proximity of an emergency exit and its subsequent use. Findings from the present study show that although proximity to an exit was important, support was found for the affiliative model in the statistical interrelationships. In general, staff of the business that burned left by the fire exit, whereas individual members of the public who were separated from other group members tended to locate themselves toward the entrance end and left that way. Choice of location and exit used were mediated by person and place affiliations. (3 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Cooperation is central to human social behaviour. However, choosing to cooperate requires individuals to incur a personal cost to benefit others. Here we explore the cognitive basis of cooperative decision-making in humans using a dual-process framework. We ask whether people are predisposed towards selfishness, behaving cooperatively only through active self-control; or whether they are intuitively cooperative, with reflection and prospective reasoning favouring 'rational' self-interest. To investigate this issue, we perform ten studies using economic games. We find that across a range of experimental designs, subjects who reach their decisions more quickly are more cooperative. Furthermore, forcing subjects to decide quickly increases contributions, whereas instructing them to reflect and forcing them to decide slowly decreases contributions. Finally, an induction that primes subjects to trust their intuitions increases contributions compared with an induction that promotes greater reflection. To explain these results, we propose that cooperation is intuitive because cooperative heuristics are developed in daily life where cooperation is typically advantageous. We then validate predictions generated by this proposed mechanism. Our results provide convergent evidence that intuition supports cooperation in social dilemmas, and that reflection can undermine these cooperative impulses.
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The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
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Research has shown that the behaviour of people in fires and other emergencies is characterized by internally rational, socially and cognitively structured action. It has not been possible to date to discover whether the victims of fires display similar patterns of behaviour to the survivors, or act in a fundamentally different way. Following the public inquiry into the 1987 King's Cross underground fire in London, data were made available which allowed this issue to be addressed. The data mainly consisted of statements and interviews with survivors and friends of the victims. Examination of this information allowed the likely actions and intentions of 24 of the 31 victims to be pieced together with a good degree of certainty. The results showed that those who died in the fire behaved in a way similar to the survivors. Generally, victims perpetuated actions that were consistent with the normal scripts for the use of the setting, and as shaped by their place-related roles and schemata. The study shows that virtually all of the victims attempted to leave the station either by the way they had entered, or by their originally intended route. Implications of the findings for the understanding, modelling and researching of behaviour under life-threatening conditions are discussed.
Chapter
The Challenge of Crowd PsychologyClassic Models of the CrowdModels of Crowd SocialityConclusion
Article
In groups of animals only a small proportion of individuals may possess particular information, such as a migration route or the direction to a resource. Individuals may differ in preferred direction resulting in conflicts of interest and, therefore, consensus decisions may have to be made to prevent the group from splitting. Recent theoretical work has shown how leadership and consensus decision making can occur without active signalling or individual recognition. Here we test these predictions experimentally using humans. We found that a small informed minority could guide a group of naïve individuals to a target without verbal communication or obvious signalling. Both the time to target and deviation from target were decreased by the presence of informed individuals. When conflicting directional information was given to different group members, the time taken to reach the target was not significantly increased; suggesting that consensus decision making in conflict situations is possible, and highly efficient. Where there was imbalance in the number of informed individuals with conflicting information, the majority dictated group direction. Our results also suggest that the spatial starting position of informed individuals influences group motion, which has implications in terms of crowd control and planning for evacuations.