The hows and whys of public involvement in mass emergency helping

John Drury

University of Sussex, UK

Acknowledgements

Chris Cocking (University of Sussex, UK)

Steve Reicher (University of St Andrews, UK)

The research was made possible by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council Ref. no: RES-000-23-0446.

Popular image of mass emergency and evacuation behaviour: Crowd ‘panic In the face of threat:

‘Instinct’ overwhelms socialization Emotion outweighs reasoning Rumours and sentiments spread uncritically Reactions disproportionate to danger Competitive and personally selfish behaviours

predominate Ineffective escape

Reproduction of ‘panic’ model in emergency policy and procedures Exit widths not communication Restriction of public information Public and crowd as ‘problem’

Interview study 1 (multiple events)

Interviews with (21) survivors of (11) disasters (and perceived/potential disasters): e.g. Hillsborough (1989), sinking ships, Bradford City fire (1985), Fatboy Slim beach party (2002)

Helping versus personally selfish behaviour?

the behaviour of many people in that crowd and simply trying to help their fellow supporters was heroic in some cases. So I don’t think in my view there was any question that there was an organic sense of… unity of crowd behaviour. It was clearly the case, you know.. it was clearly the case that people were trying to get people who were seriously injured out of that crowd, it was seriously a case of trying to get people to hospital, get them to safety .. I just wish I’d been able to.. to prevail on a few more people not to.. put themselves in danger.

(Hillsborough 3)

Explaining helping behaviour

Norms, roles and affiliation were referred to. BUT so was ‘unity’.Most who described a sense of unity (12 vs 7) linked it to the sense of threat they experienced (13 vs 1):

TC: Oh yeah of course I I get on the train every day. So a train journey you would normally take is, you know, I myself get on the train at ten to seven in the mornings, sit down, open the paper and there might be one or two people talking out of a completely packed carriage.Int: Yeah.TC: So, you know, that that sort of thing and the perception… of of being involved in that, and everyone’s involved and let’s do, let’s group together’(Train accident)

Interview study 1: Conclusions

N of Ps small, but rich accounts (of n of incidents, behaviours, perceptions, feelings)

No evidence for widespread panic Some evidence for affiliation, roles and norms BUT the evidence of common unity, and its

correlation with indiscriminate and self-sacrificial helping, makes a prima facie case for an SCT-based account of mass evacuation behaviour:

Disaster turns an aggregate into a psychological crowd

Interview study 2: London bombings of 7/7/05Three bombs on the London Underground and one on a London bus 56 people killed (including the four bombers) over 700 injuredThose in the bombed underground trains were left in the dark, with few announcements, and with no way of knowing whether they would be rescued, whether the rail lines were live and so on. There were fears by both those in the trains and the emergency services of further explosions.

London bombs: data-set

12 face-to-face interviews plus seven e-mail responses

Secondary data:(i) ‘Contemporaneous’ interviews with survivors and

witnesses, from 141 different articles in 10 different national daily newspapers.

(ii) 114 detailed personal accounts of survivors (web, London Assembly enquiry, books or retrospective newspaper features.

= data from at least 145 people, most of whom (90)

were actually caught up in the explosions

How much mutual help was there?

In the personal accounts: 42 people reported helping others 29 reported being helped by others 50 reported witnessing others affected by the

explosions helping others

‘this Australian guy was handing his water to all of us to make sure we were all right I I was coughing quite heavily from smoke inhalation and so [ ] I’d got a bit of a cold anyway which aggravated it [ ] and also I mean he was really helpful but when the initial blast happened I was sat next to an elderly lady a middle aged lady … and I just said to her “are you all right?”’

(Edgware Road)

Did people help despite feeling in danger themselves? There was a widespread fear of danger or

death through secondary explosions or the tunnel collapsing. Yet:

Nine of our 19 respondents gave examples of where they had helped other people despite their own fear of death.

‘People outside our carriage on the track were trying to save the people with very severe injuries - they were heroes.

The driver of our train did his utmost to keep all passengers calm - he was a hero. If he knew what had happened he gave nothing away.’

(King’s Cross)

Were people with strangers or affiliates?

Most of the people affected were amongst strangers:

nearly 60 people in the personal accounts reported being amongst people they didn’t know (including 48 people who were actually on the trains or bus that exploded)

only eight reported being with family or friends at the time of the explosion.

How much personally selfish behaviour was evident?Selfish, competitive behaviour was rare Personal accounts: only four cases of

people's behaviour that could be described as personally selfish, and six cases where the speaker suggested that another victim behaved selfishly to them or to someone else.

Seven people referred to their own behaviour as selfish BUT in most cases this seemed to be ‘survivor guilt’

Was there a sense of ‘unity’ (shared identity)? Occasional references to unity and shared

fate in secondary data, e.g. ‘Blitz spirit’ BUT no references to dis-unity either Interview data:

Nine out of twelve were explicit that there was a strong sense of unity in the crowd

References to unity were not only typical but also spontaneous and elaborate/detailed:

‘empathy’ ‘unity’ ‘together’ ‘similarity’, ‘affinity’ ‘part of a group’ ‘you thought these people knew each other’ ‘vague solidity’ ‘warmness’ ‘teamness’ ‘everybody, didn’t matter what colour or nationality’

London bombs: Summary

No mass panic behaviour Mutual aid was common, personally selfish

behaviour was rare Most people felt in danger but continued to

help Evidence of unity in the primary data Hence relationship between: external threat,

shared identity, help – in line with SCT.

Some conclusions

‘Panic’ is a feature of individuals not crowds Helping behaviour is more common in emergencies

than in everyday life Affiliation and everyday norms may explain some

aspects of mass emergency behaviour but not all Shared identity explains some of the helping

behaviour (and reduces ‘selfish’ behaviour) in emergencies

The evidence that shared identity develops with the sense of shared threat is in line with the SCT account

In contrast to ‘panic’, an emergency brings people together not drives them apart

Theoretical implications

Previous SCT research has shown the role of shared identity in helping (Levine et al.)

This research adds that such group-based helping can also take place in highly stressful, dangerous crowd situations

This research suggests that self-cat is the psychological basis of ‘resilience’ (collective self-help, resources and recovery in disasters)

Practical implications

If ‘panic’ is wrong and crowd behaviour is social and meaningful Design and emergency procedures: More emphasis on

communicating with the crowd and less on the crowd as a physical entity (exit widths)

If shared social identity is the basis of much helping Those in authority should encourage a sense of

collective identity in the public If there is a potential for resilience among strangers

The authorities and emergency services need to allow and cater for people’s willingness to help each other.

Take-home message

The collective is a resource not an obstacle in mass emergencies

Rather than being excluded from emergency defence and evacuation, the public should be allowed to be more centrally involved