Wow, "The Unthinkable" just continues to amaze me. I've started underlining interesting passages in pencil because Ripley makes so many notable observations. This week's chapters were on groupthink, panic and paralysis. As I read through, I noticed myself laughing at some of the situations, especially the one about the panic at the pizzaria after a water heater exploded. Of course people getting trampled is not funny, but the way Ripley describes how humans behave in certain situations is comical. It's irrational and to a person not experiencing it, it easily sounds ridiculous.
Key takeaways:
I didn't expect people to maintain their hierarchy in a disaster. The scenes I see in movies show that people just start panicking and don't observe any type of order or hierarchy. It was fascinating to read that the woman who was getting married acted as the leader during the fire. She felt responsibility because it was her wedding.
I thought the section about reciprocity made sense. It's really fascinating to see that we maintain our ties to the natural world even though we live pretty separate from it. The millenia of survival traits matter more than the changes from the last century, which is essentially just a second in human evolution. Our decisions are ultimately selfish, even if we are saving other people's lives. I haven't consciously thought about it as selfish, but it really does make sense.
One of the most shocking observations Ripley made is that our disaster models don't mimic human behavior. The line about the EXODUS model developed by Ed Galea being too complex and containing too much human behavior is ridiculous. I don't understand why planners don't take this into account until after the disaster has struck. Seems that the concept of using the easiest possible solution (heuristics) to a problem is costing lives.
The section about fire scared the shit out of me. I am not prepared for a fire at all. I went around our house and checked the batteries in the smoke detectors and found that most of them had dead batteries. I'm also planning to figure out the best escape routes with my boyfriend this week. I had no idea that standing up out of bed would likely kill me. We learn stop, drop and roll, but I honestly haven't thought about it in years. It's also terrifying to read that the materials in homes are much more deadly than they were just 25 years ago.
I would have liked Ripley to talk more about why the animals sought higher ground hours before the tsunami struck. How did they know something bad was coming? Did they sense something in the air? Is this instinct something that humans could learn and mimic?
In the panic chapter, I was fascinated to read about the stampedes around the Jamarat. I didn't know about this particular ritual in Saudi Arabia and realized I need to read more about it. I have been in many crowds before during concerts, at rush hour in New York and while traveling through Indian streets, and I've felt the powerlessness that occurs when the one-square yard of space rule is violated. You lose control of your movements and are vulnerable to the whims of the crowd. It's both exhilarating and terrifying. I also learned that people can be killed without ever having fallen. I actually thought the true danger was falling but learned that pressure can also be a risk.
Enrico L. Quarantelli tried to quantify panic, which I think is a useful and enlightening subject. I love how Ripley notes that these studies are tough to get past the IRB. Useful but way understudied as a result. Quarantelli found that there must be three conditions present for people to panic:
1. People must feel that they may be trapped
2. Panic requires a sensation of great helplessness
3. Panic requires a profound sense of isolation.
Ripley concludes that panic is "what happens when human beings glimpse their own impending mortality — and know that it didn't have to be so."
It's so dark and terrifying. It's also fascinating that people are measuring and attempting to quantify a reaction that seems like it is so instinctual. As a result, city and building planners are able to foresee problems and adjust spaces so that panic is less likely to ensue.
According to Ripley, there are two types of anxiety and these can help predict the chance of inexplicable decision-making in a high-stress environment. State anxiety describes "how a person reacts to stressful situations," while trait anxiety describes "a person's general tendency to see things as stressful to begin with." What I learned from the experiment William Morgan ran is that people with higher trait anxiety should probably try to avoid putting themselves in high-stress environments like diving or firefighting without lots of preparation and self-awareness.
When an animal is paralyzed by fear, its heart rate drops, its body temperature drops, its respiration goes up, its body becomes numb to pain and it stares it an unfocused gaze. I don't think I've ever seen an animal or a person freeze in fear. But after reading this chapter, I have more respect for the response. I also have a much greater understanding of rape survivors. Researchers found that 40 percent of rape survivors remember feeling some sort of paralysis and 10 percent reported being completely immobile. As Ripley pointed out, this reaction makes it much easier for perpetrators to say they gained consent and for people to prosecute because the person was unable to fight back. Including this type of research in reporting, especially in longer-form reporting would be incredibly beneficial to readers. It would help people understand the response and hopefully, be less likely to blame the victim.
The evolutionary response for paralysis is also really interesting. It's actually a strategy used by animals because predators are less likely to eat sick or rotting prey. It's a hard-wired way to avoid food poisoning.
The bummer is that paralysis doesn't work in certain situations when the predator is actually a burning plane or a sinking boat. But seems to be more effective in human-on-human attacks such as rapes or shootings. So we have to train ourselves to assess the type of situation quickly, practice various responses to each and then hope we respond appropriately when the time comes.
Key takeaways:
I didn't expect people to maintain their hierarchy in a disaster. The scenes I see in movies show that people just start panicking and don't observe any type of order or hierarchy. It was fascinating to read that the woman who was getting married acted as the leader during the fire. She felt responsibility because it was her wedding.
I thought the section about reciprocity made sense. It's really fascinating to see that we maintain our ties to the natural world even though we live pretty separate from it. The millenia of survival traits matter more than the changes from the last century, which is essentially just a second in human evolution. Our decisions are ultimately selfish, even if we are saving other people's lives. I haven't consciously thought about it as selfish, but it really does make sense.
One of the most shocking observations Ripley made is that our disaster models don't mimic human behavior. The line about the EXODUS model developed by Ed Galea being too complex and containing too much human behavior is ridiculous. I don't understand why planners don't take this into account until after the disaster has struck. Seems that the concept of using the easiest possible solution (heuristics) to a problem is costing lives.
The section about fire scared the shit out of me. I am not prepared for a fire at all. I went around our house and checked the batteries in the smoke detectors and found that most of them had dead batteries. I'm also planning to figure out the best escape routes with my boyfriend this week. I had no idea that standing up out of bed would likely kill me. We learn stop, drop and roll, but I honestly haven't thought about it in years. It's also terrifying to read that the materials in homes are much more deadly than they were just 25 years ago.
I would have liked Ripley to talk more about why the animals sought higher ground hours before the tsunami struck. How did they know something bad was coming? Did they sense something in the air? Is this instinct something that humans could learn and mimic?
In the panic chapter, I was fascinated to read about the stampedes around the Jamarat. I didn't know about this particular ritual in Saudi Arabia and realized I need to read more about it. I have been in many crowds before during concerts, at rush hour in New York and while traveling through Indian streets, and I've felt the powerlessness that occurs when the one-square yard of space rule is violated. You lose control of your movements and are vulnerable to the whims of the crowd. It's both exhilarating and terrifying. I also learned that people can be killed without ever having fallen. I actually thought the true danger was falling but learned that pressure can also be a risk.
Enrico L. Quarantelli tried to quantify panic, which I think is a useful and enlightening subject. I love how Ripley notes that these studies are tough to get past the IRB. Useful but way understudied as a result. Quarantelli found that there must be three conditions present for people to panic:
1. People must feel that they may be trapped
2. Panic requires a sensation of great helplessness
3. Panic requires a profound sense of isolation.
Ripley concludes that panic is "what happens when human beings glimpse their own impending mortality — and know that it didn't have to be so."
It's so dark and terrifying. It's also fascinating that people are measuring and attempting to quantify a reaction that seems like it is so instinctual. As a result, city and building planners are able to foresee problems and adjust spaces so that panic is less likely to ensue.
According to Ripley, there are two types of anxiety and these can help predict the chance of inexplicable decision-making in a high-stress environment. State anxiety describes "how a person reacts to stressful situations," while trait anxiety describes "a person's general tendency to see things as stressful to begin with." What I learned from the experiment William Morgan ran is that people with higher trait anxiety should probably try to avoid putting themselves in high-stress environments like diving or firefighting without lots of preparation and self-awareness.
When an animal is paralyzed by fear, its heart rate drops, its body temperature drops, its respiration goes up, its body becomes numb to pain and it stares it an unfocused gaze. I don't think I've ever seen an animal or a person freeze in fear. But after reading this chapter, I have more respect for the response. I also have a much greater understanding of rape survivors. Researchers found that 40 percent of rape survivors remember feeling some sort of paralysis and 10 percent reported being completely immobile. As Ripley pointed out, this reaction makes it much easier for perpetrators to say they gained consent and for people to prosecute because the person was unable to fight back. Including this type of research in reporting, especially in longer-form reporting would be incredibly beneficial to readers. It would help people understand the response and hopefully, be less likely to blame the victim.
The evolutionary response for paralysis is also really interesting. It's actually a strategy used by animals because predators are less likely to eat sick or rotting prey. It's a hard-wired way to avoid food poisoning.
The bummer is that paralysis doesn't work in certain situations when the predator is actually a burning plane or a sinking boat. But seems to be more effective in human-on-human attacks such as rapes or shootings. So we have to train ourselves to assess the type of situation quickly, practice various responses to each and then hope we respond appropriately when the time comes.
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