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The Frozen Calm of Normalcy Bias
Gizmodo.com ^ | 5-2-13 | Esther Inglis-Arkell

Posted on 03/03/2020 7:20:23 PM PST by DouglasKC

When disaster strikes, some people lose their heads, some people become cool and effective, but by far most people act as if they've suddenly forgotten the disaster. They behave in surprisingly mundane ways, right up until it's too late. Around the world, researchers are wondering how to combat normalcy bias.

If you spend the beginning of your flights staring in disbelief at the cabin crew gesturing towards the emergency exits and asking you to look at them and think about walking to them in an emergency, you may be surprised that doing exactly that has saved one person. When two planes collided just above a runway in Tenerife in 1977, a man was stuck, with his wife, in a plane that was slowly being engulfed in flames. He remembered making a special note of the exits, grabbed his wife's hand, and ran towards one of them. As it happened, he didn't need to use it, since a portion of the plane had been sheared away. He jumped out, along with his wife and the few people who survived. Many more people should have made it out. Fleeing survivors ran past living, uninjured people who sat in seats literally watching for the minute it took for the flames to reach them.

This isn't unique behavior, although plane crashes provide the most dramatic examples. People seeking shelter during tornadoes and cyclones are often called back, or delayed, by people doing normal activities, who refuse to believe the emergency is happening. These people are displaying what's known as normalcy bias. About 70% of people in a disaster do it. Although movies show crowds screaming and panicking, most people move dazedly through normal activities in a crisis. This can be a good thing; researchers find that people who are in this state are docile and can be directed without chaos. They even tend to quiet and calm the 10-15% of people who freak out.

The downside of the bias is the fact that they tend to retard the progress of the 10-15% of people who act appropriately. The main source of delay masquerades as the need to get more data. Scientists call this "milling." People will usually get about four opinions on what's going on and what they should do before taking any action — even in an obvious crisis. People in emergency situations report calling out to others, asking, "What's going on?" When someone tells them to evacuate, or to take shelter, they fail to comply and move on, asking other people the same question.

This isn't entirely loopy behavior. If something minor seems wrong, in your neighborhood, office, or home, it's hardly inappropriate to ask the people around what's happening. And how many of us have heard a suspicious noise nearby, paused for a moment, and then thought, "I'm sure it's nothing," and gone back to what we were doing? The problem comes when, even when it is obviously something, people stay in denial.

There are a lot of theories for why this occurs. There's the shock itself, and the time it takes to process it. Even people who are well-trained and well-informed lose some of their knowledge and physical acumen under extreme pressure. Some researchers blame instincts. Animals that don't struggle during an attack by an overwhelmingly large predator are sometimes left alone. The passivity indicates sickness or poison, and puts off the predator. Faced with a threat that's overwhelmingly enormous, people may instinctively become passive as well.

Other researchers believe those with normalcy bias are playing the odds. People step onto dangerous-looking roller coasters every day and scare themselves half to death, trusting that, no, the situation their instincts are screaming about couldn't possibly really be happening. Rounding out the theories about normalcy bias is the idea that people need information in order to act. If people don't know how to deal with a situation, they can't begin to deal with it, so they don't begin to deal with it.

Nothing can be done about sudden shocks and natural instincts, so most researchers try to deal in increased information. This is why we're given countless safety lectures. Look at the exits and plan your exit route. In the event of an earthquake, a fire, a flood, do this. Drills and practices, even if only done in a person't imagination, at least give them the basic tools that they need when dealing with an emergency.

More complicated, from a policy standpoint, is the need to personalize the risk. This information — that the present disaster will harm you, yes you, so take action — is the hardest to accurately disseminate. People mill, asking for opinions, because they want to be told that everything is fine. They will keep asking, and delaying, until they get the answer they want. In a completely alien emergency situation — such as a downed, flaming plane — people think of the likelihood that they're mistaken about the nature of the emergency, and the consequences for screwing up if they take personal action. Although early warning systems, alarms, and alerts proliferate, very few things manage to get through to specific people that they are in personal danger, that they are on their own, and that they need to take steps to save themselves.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: coronavirus; disaster; disease; fearmongers
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To: Responsibility2nd

A part of me wants to crap the pants, especially when I read the growing numbers of cases and deaths.

The other part of me plans on how to bunker down if and when it hits my community. We are steadily increasing food supplies and preaching to my wife and daughter daily about hand washing and taking multivitamins.

I’m 90% no go on a trip to DC later this month. If things are still quiet around here, may just stay around the house or go to the lake


21 posted on 03/03/2020 8:07:04 PM PST by BluegrassCardinal
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To: DouglasKC

I’m thinking to myself, when was the last time things were normal?


22 posted on 03/03/2020 8:09:03 PM PST by notted
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To: DouglasKC

There’s a website called “Not Always Right” where people post stories about crazy, funny, or just plain stupid customers. You would not believe the number of stories in which a building catches fire, and people insist on staying and finishing their shopping. Or they walk right past the firetrucks and step over the hoses, with people shouting at them to stay back, because they can’t comprehend that the store is ON FIRE!!!

I’ve seen normalcy bias in action on occasion. It’s always a little freaky when you shout instructions at somebody, and they just stare at you dumbly like you’re speaking gibberish. If the instruction is something like “stay back!”, they’ll walk right into the disaster, while still staring at you.


23 posted on 03/03/2020 8:09:16 PM PST by Ellendra (A single lie on our side does more damage than a thousand lies on their side.)
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To: gibsonguy

Coronavirus is the same as anthropogenic global climate change...just sped up about 1,000 times.


24 posted on 03/03/2020 8:13:40 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: DouglasKC

I remember when my wife was driving a truck, pretty far ahead of us dropped a mattress. My wife kept humming along, as in a trance, while the mattress did its dance before settling down. Finally I yelled “slow down”. No accident, but it is a pretty normal reaction on her part.

The conditioned reaction, which I’ve pretty well trained myself, is to hit the brakes as early as possible, even when there’s a lot of room ahead. The way I see it, I can always speed up later, once I’ve got the situation figured out.


25 posted on 03/03/2020 8:21:14 PM PST by BobL (If some people here don't want to prep for Coronavirus, they can explain it to their families)
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To: DouglasKC

26 posted on 03/03/2020 8:22:07 PM PST by Travis McGee (EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: BluegrassCardinal; Responsibility2nd
A part of me wants to crap the pants, especially when I read the growing numbers of cases and deaths. The other part of me plans on how to bunker down if and when it hits my community. We are steadily increasing food supplies and preaching to my wife and daughter daily about hand washing and taking multivitamins. I’m 90% no go on a trip to DC later this month. If things are still quiet around here, may just stay around the house or go to the lake

I'm not worried about getting the disease. Doing what you are...prepared and washing hands. If we get it we get it but odds are that we'll be okay. Even if we get it we're at peace with God.

The big problem and the one governments fear is the collapse of the healthcare system. We already have a shortage of doctors and nurses. If it becomes really widespread hospitals and doctors are going to be overwhelmed. Those not in there for corona are in weakened states and will catch corona and once that's gone the true death toll...what happens without treatment.

That will end up costing trillions.

27 posted on 03/03/2020 8:22:22 PM PST by DouglasKC
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To: DouglasKC

“Interesting article that explains the reaction by both sides to the unfolding saga of the corona virus. 70% will refuse to see disasters as disasters until it’s too late.”

It does seem that way. By the time they figure out that they need toilet paper, for example, they’ll find themselves limited to one package at Costco, and will wind up having to drive to 4 of them just to get a half-decent supply - and that even assumes that Costco even allows that, since they can easily set a limit of, say, one package per week, per membership. Want two packages - then open a new membership. LOL.

The other thing they’ll find is why many of us chose to prepare PRIOR to the chaos...which is that we’d much rather NOT have to stand in line after line for things, with people who may or may not be healthy.


28 posted on 03/03/2020 8:28:17 PM PST by BobL (If some people here don't want to prep for Coronavirus, they can explain it to their families)
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To: Travis McGee

So it’s time to panic?


29 posted on 03/03/2020 8:32:58 PM PST by MileHi (Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks.)
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To: DouglasKC

“I don’t know. I think it’s the perfect example. When I saw all of the extreme unprecedented measures that every country on earth has taken to stop or slow this I assumed that the alternate would be disaster. The alternate being that it spreads. “

The normalcy bias here is thinking that this virus will simply ‘blow over’ the United States because we have big oceans on both sides (reminds me of 1941), or that millions of empty shipping containers won’t start to affect what’s in our stores, or whether parts remain available for our cars, or meds remain available, etc.


30 posted on 03/03/2020 8:33:18 PM PST by BobL (If some people here don't want to prep for Coronavirus, they can explain it to their families)
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To: MileHi

“So it’s time to panic?”

I’m planning to panic a week from Tuesday, but everyone can make their choice as they see fit.


31 posted on 03/03/2020 8:35:37 PM PST by BobL (If some people here don't want to prep for Coronavirus, they can explain it to their families)
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To: DouglasKC

That’s a bit extreme. People aren’t turning into zombies and overtaking the world — that might be construed as a disaster. This isn’t a plane crash or a tornado or a blitz military invasion. We’re talking about a mild contagion.

The 2-percent mortality figure is tossed around, but nobody has any idea how many people have actually been infected. Many people may be asymptomatic or have only mild signs for a few days and never be entered in the statistics. Immune-compromised people who acquire this infection or any other will always be more susceptible to poor outcomes.

I don’t see any reason, on evidence-based science and experience, to panic and spread unhelpful fear in the population at large. It’s being taken seriously. Panicking won’t help and it won’t stop the transmission of the virus. Washing your hands and not coughing on people would help a lot, though.


32 posted on 03/03/2020 8:39:19 PM PST by FoxInSocks ("Hope is not a course of action." -- M. O'Neal, USMC)
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To: BobL
The other thing they’ll find is why many of us chose to prepare PRIOR to the chaos...which is that we’d much rather NOT have to stand in line after line for things, with people who may or may not be healthy.

Exactly. It's going to happen. It's happened everywhere else the virus hit. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. If everyone prepared early there would be no panic. Instead we have people telling us it's stupid to prepare because the ship isn't sinking!

33 posted on 03/03/2020 8:42:26 PM PST by DouglasKC
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To: BobL

LOL! OK I might panic Saturday, depending on how warm it is this weekend.


34 posted on 03/03/2020 8:45:41 PM PST by MileHi (Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks.)
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To: MileHi

“LOL! OK I might panic Saturday, depending on how warm it is this weekend.”

Come to think of it, I have to work a week from Tuesday, but this Saturday I might be free. Perhaps that’s a better time for me to panic?


35 posted on 03/03/2020 8:48:59 PM PST by BobL (If some people here don't want to prep for Coronavirus, they can explain it to their families)
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To: FoxInSocks
That’s a bit extreme. People aren’t turning into zombies and overtaking the world — that might be construed as a disaster. This isn’t a plane crash or a tornado or a blitz military invasion. We’re talking about a mild contagion.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. The actions of every government of the world show that they do not consider this a "mild contagion". They are combatting it as if it's a threat to their country. This includes our own government who are having an unprecedented response to it. There have been and still are mass quarantines in every country where it has struck. Schools and businesses have been closed in every country where it has struck. In short EVERY country on the face of the earth is doing everything they possibly can to slow or stop its spread.

And yet many look at these CLEAR warning signs and react EXACTLY like below:

"It can result in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. They also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation. "

Almost NOBODY has experienced this before. Therefore it's 100% certain that there is normalcy bias present. The warnings are there but people will minimize them by saying "it only affects asians. It only affects 3rd world countries. It only affects the really sick. It only affects smokers. etc etc." It is the text book examples of looking at warnings in the most optimistic ways possible.

36 posted on 03/03/2020 8:55:09 PM PST by DouglasKC
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To: BobL

So seriously, I’m not getting wound up about this. It seems like the flu, you don’t want it but unless you are older and have health issues I don’t see any reason to panic. I avoid crowds any way. Maybe I’ll to off my supplies a little.


37 posted on 03/03/2020 9:04:04 PM PST by MileHi (Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks.)
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To: DouglasKC

Far worse are those that are complacent AND seek to make others complacent as well. Blood on their hands.


38 posted on 03/03/2020 9:08:14 PM PST by StolarStorm
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To: VanShuyten
"... 10-15% of people who freak out.” “ The downside of the bias is the fact that they tend to retard the progress of the 10-15% of people who act appropriately.”

IOWs "freaking out" is the appropriate reaction. I think they teach that to the SEALs in BUD/S.

39 posted on 03/03/2020 9:18:45 PM PST by TigersEye (MAGA - 16 more years! - KAG)
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To: TigersEye

No, they said 10-15% freak out, another 10-15% do correct action, and the big normalcy bias middle sometimes impede the act appropriately crowd.


40 posted on 03/03/2020 9:36:55 PM PST by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. ....)
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