The phenomenon of panic

and crowd reaction

Definitions

Panic (English dictionary)-a situation in which

people are made to feel very anxious, causing
them to act very quickly without careful
planning
Crowd (English dictionary)-a large number of
things or people considered together, it does
not have interior organisation or integration.
Panic (psychologically) a sudden overwhelming
fear, with or without cause, that produces
hysterical or irrational behavior, and that often
spreads quickly through a group of people

Panic can occur more often in such

places:
undergrounds, schools, hospitals
stadiums, markets
cinemas, theatres, concerts, churches
trains, ships, planes
elevators, buildings
the multitudes

Situations that may lead to mass panic

Terrorist attacks
Catastrophes
Fires
Accident/damage
Floods
Warfares
Unexpected sounds (especially: shooting,
screaming, panic reactions of other people)

Situations that may lead to mass

panic
Bad visibility (night, fog, smoke)
Bad weather condition (rain, snow, low/high
temperature)
Number of people
Possibility of evacuation ( available
fireescapes)
Agressive and unfriendly crowd
Nervous behaviour of Rescuers Teams

Development of crowd behaviour

theories over time
19th Century- Le Bons irrationalist approach
from 1980s to present- The Social Identity
Model

The Panic model

Part of the irrationalist tradition in
crowd psychology
a) Threat causes emotion to overwhelm
reason
b) Collective identity breaks down
c) Selfish behaviours- pushing, trampling
d) Contagion-these behaviours spread to
crowd as a whole

But mass panic is v. rare!

Social attachment modelMawson (2005)

In emergencies, people seek out attachment
figures: social norms rarely break down
But, such ties can have fatal consequencespeople escape (or die) in groups

The self-categorisation approach

Turner (1987)
Disasters create a common identity or sense
of we-ness- Clarke (2002)
This can result in altruistic behaviour as
people escape common threat
Increased threat can enhance common
identity

People in panic- psychological

reactions
People:
lose sense of time
lose an ability to control themselves
do not react to orders
do not react to peruasion
behave irrationally

People in panic- sociological reactions

Open for suggestion (behave the same way

as other people in panic)
They are focused on the same thing or
idea
Crowd gives power
Fear of law and punishment is lower
There is WE instead of I
Crowd guarantee impunity and anonymity

Different types of crowd and individual

reactions and behaviours

G.Le Bon in his book Crowd Psychology says:

human in crowd is not himself, he becomes similar to crowd

G.W. Allport thinks that

human in crowd is even more himself

Human is closer to his masked personality

structure
There is no social control
Responsibility is shared between the people in
the crowd
People around are doing the same

Emotions in multitudes
Crowd + hate= lynching
Crowd + joy= joyful reverly
Crowd + dread=panic reaction
Panic contributes to the final size of the tragedy

Dealing with panic

Force with shock impulse
Diffuse the crowd
Immediately and safely leave the building or
vehicle
Efficient rescue action
Seperate leaders from the crowd
Isolate people who manifest fear, so that their
behaviour and emotions cannot influence others

Research on emergency evacuations:

implications for practice
Providing people with more info can improve
efficiency (Proulx & Sime, 1991)
Source of info should be reliable
Believe in crowds co-operative nature- dont
assume they will panic
Practice evacuations!