Collective Resilience by Drury (2012) - Article

Policy makers and people involved in nation security got more interested in the concept of resilience after 9/11. During that time, the UK also had to deal with other problems, like the threat of terrorism, flooding, an outbreak of food-and-mouth-disease and a fuel crisis. It was decided that the risk of certain emergencies occurring had to be assessed and that plans should be put forward to enhance resilience. Resilience can be seen as an adaptive response and even a recovery from emergencies. The writers of this text argue that crowds can provide the resilience that helps one cope psychologically with disasters. One of the causes of this is that people in crowds come together, sharing a common fate. A person shifts from having a personal identity to a shared social identity. The Social Identity (SI) model of collective resilience is used to predict the predecessors and consequences of mass emergencies.

Resilience and vulnerability

Resilience in this text refers to the capacity of a person to adapt well (emotionally, psychologically and physically) to threats. It also means that a person will not have lasting negative consequences to his/her well-being because of the threat. Resilience can be seen as an individual trait, but some also see it as a dynamic process of forming and maintaining social bonds. In social-organizational contexts, resilience seems to have to same meaning. It is an adaptive response of infrastructure to stress, which ultimately leads to recovery. Resilience gives a certain hope. It lets people believe that not all is lost and damage can be restored.

Some argue that resilience is undermined by vulnerability. Vulnerability can be seen as a psychological frailty to damage. One assumption of vulnerability is that people collectively over-react and because of this, they shouldn’t be told about the extent of danger they are/will be in. Sensitive information should only be given to people with high positions and who are immune to vulnerability. Others also state that vulnerability will result in disorderly rioting in the face of disaster and the civilization turning into barbarians. It is presumed that once people have started to act barbarically, it is difficult or even impossible to reason with them. The government should use great power to restore the order. Also, according to the vulnerability framework, the responses to disasters can be seen as a mental disorder or trauma. However, there is critique on this. Some argue that it’s normal (and not a disorder) to respond with distress after a disaster. The distress will ease with time. People also argue that there is not much looting after a disaster and that the media only exaggerates the looting. They argue that the survivors of Hurricane Katrina took and shared necessities from abandoned shops and that is was good for their independence and their survival. They also argue that people need information and that it shouldn’t be kept from them. Information results in effective preparation and action. The critics state that it is the lack of information that results in dysfunction.

Mass panic to social bonds

Mass panic can be seen as part of the vulnerability framework. Mass panic suggests that distress leads to maladaptive behaviour, but research has shown that social bonds can strengthen personal survival when people are faced with distress. The conditions that are needed for mass panic are:

• Life-threatening danger

• No or limited opportunity for escape

• A crowd

Mass panic also has some or all of the following features:

• Primitive instincts superseding rules of a civilization

• Loss of behavioural control and social obligations, which also will results in competition between people

• Overwhelming emotions, which result in fears that are out of proportion to the danger

• Absence of collective coordination

Because of all these characteristics, mass panic can be a health concern for the public and it also suggests that collective human reactions to distress lead to more problems than the issues we try to get away from. An example that is often used as an example for mass panic is the fire of 1942 at the Coconut Grove theatre. During a show at the theatre, fire spread throughout the building and 492 people died. However, there came a thorough inspection and it turned out that the staff didn’t have knowledge of fire exits, there were no fire exit signs and the revolving doors malfunctioned. The owners were then held responsible for the deaths of all those people and it wasn’t actually the ‘fault’ of mass panic. Mass panic can be used to blame crowds for tragedies, but research suggests that mass panic is rare.

Many studies show that orderly behaviour and helping are more common in mass emergencies than mass panic is. Some examples throughout history have shown that people in dangerous situations help each other out and they maintain the patterns of social behaviour. Psychologists also agree with this. They state that roles, rules and relationships don’t just disappear when there is panic, but they govern behaviour in panic situations. Social bonds that have existed before the disaster, are also important for collective resilience. Collective resilience refers to the coping processes of a community. It seems that relationships and bonds hold communities together and they give support and protection in stressful times. Social bonds that have existed before emergency situations, seem to protect against collective stress. However, some think that these bonds are not necessary to explain collective resilience behaviour in disasters. The reason behind this thinking is that the affected crowds consist of people who are strangers of each other. But still, these strangers help each other.

In mass emergencies, people help their family and friends. But, collectively resilient behaviours have also another source: the togetherness of the people. People feel psychologically close to each other when a disaster occurs. People who support the social bonds theory, acknowledge that the spontaneous togetherness in crowds exists, but they can’t explain this in terms of pre-existing relationships, so they just neglect it. The social bonds account doesn’t look at the crowd as a dynamic, psychological entity.

Social identity model of collective resilience

The Social Identity model of collective resilience is grounded in the concepts of self-categorization theory (SCT) and the Social Identity (SI) theories. This model consists of two parts: antecedents and consequences. The former looks at how crowds get the same identity and the latter looks at how this shared identity contributes to behaviours that are beneficial for collective survival and well-being. A figure of this model can be seen on the 7^th page of the article.

Antecedents

The model makes a distinction between psychological and physical crowds. The former refers to people who feel as one and the latter refers to people who are just in the same place at the same time. Depending on their social reality, people can shift from seeing themselves as individuals to seeing themselves as part of a crowd. Common fate is one of the criteria for this shift. Research and examples throughout history have also shown that the experience of common threat can create a ‘we-feeling’ among survivors of a disaster. A person shifts from thinking about himself/herself in contrast to others, to thinking of us in contrast to the disaster. Looking at it from the self-categorization perspective, all people who see themselves equally threatened, start categorizing themselves as one psychological unit in relation to that threat. The threat is really salient and it therefore overrides other possible categorizations of the people who are dealing with it. It creates a shared social identity.

The writers of this article have tested the following hypothesis in previous studies: emergencies create a common fate among survivors and this, in turn, gives rise to a shared social identity. They tested this hypothesis in a case study, an interview and a role-play experiment. For the case study, they asked 17 survivors of the London bombing of 2005. Most of the survivors stated that there was a feeling of togetherness immediately after the bombing. They attributed this togetherness to the danger they all faced. The researchers also interviewed survivors of 11 emergencies. Almost all survivors stated that the feeling of togetherness came into existence after the disaster, but the ones who were judged to have experienced more crowd unity, referred more often to common fate than the ones who were judged to have experienced less crowd unity. In the role-playing game, participants were told to exit a bust underground rail station as quickly as possible. The people who were told that the reason for the urgent exit was a fire, reported a higher identification with the crowd than people who were told that the reason for the urgent exit was a sale. These different studies support the hypothesis of the writers.

Consequences

A person transforms cognitively and relationally when he/she comes to see oneself as part of a crowd. Your self-interest becomes our interest. If one sees the group-normative actions as one’s own actions, he/she will feel motivated to act in the collective interest. The cognitive transformation is about values and goals, while the relational transformation is about how people act with others. The relational transformation has two aspects: social solidarity and social validation. Solidarity consists of helping, routine civility and expectations of support and it contributes to the survival of a crowd. Helping can consist of many things and depends on the situation at hand. Some helping behaviours are physically supporting a person, encouraging a person and sharing water with another person. According to a study, people who felt highly united with the crowd were more likely to help than people who were poorly united with the crowd. Routine civility can be seen as a mundane form of social coordination. It doesn’t carry a cost for the one performing it (as in helping, which may come with a cost). Behaviours involved are cooperation with others and giving way to others. This is more important than helping. Expectations of support are about the expectations that one has about being supported by others when he/she needs help. Expectations of support are important in well-being. When people are anxious, they may increase the stress and not think rationally, this might inhibit good evacuation responses. A shared social identity reduces this anxiety. All these three forms of solidarity are based on a shared social identity. Validation means that a shared social identity results in a shared social reality. The people in the crowd expect that they will agree with each other and that they trust each other’s judgments.

Empowered collective action

Shared social identity provides goals and understandings, and it also turns these understandings into practice. Shared social identity is the basis of all collective behaviour. Empowered collective action consists of the combination of the expected support and shared perceptions and shared values of the world. A crowd with a shared social identity will organize a place in a way that prevents the risk of further trauma. Shared social identity will also have crowd self-policing: pressuring deviant members to obey the rules. Empowerment is also positive for one’s well-being. Evacuating a dangerous context successfully, can bring about emotions of pride, relief and joy. Public participation and responsibility are associated with greater public morale.

Implications of the SI model

The writers think that there are implications to be drawn from the theory about the use of this model. They also think that there are limits of resilience. People like to help in emergencies. The public wants to offer assistance. The writers think that this tendency should be allowed autonomy by emergency organizations. More control should be given to public participation. In most cases, the emergency services can’t get on time to the people who are in grave danger. The public involvement can help and also boost the morale of the people in danger. In some contingencies, the public is encouraged to take responsibility in emergencies. However, the writers want the public to have even more power and to be involved in deeper planning. The writers also think that officials and experts can be of best service to survivors, when they facilitate their natural resilience. The best social cure for survivors of emergencies is to return to their normal routines and their own capabilities to attend to their needs. Survivors need to receive resources (food and shelter) and they should also be given information (about family or about appropriate services).

Information is empowering, and communication strategies should therefore be of high priority. However, information is only seen as valid if it comes from a trusted source. When the source is seen as an outgroup, this information is seen as biased. People should be making more use of medical and scientific authority.

Language is a strong way to construct things in different ways. The world can be constructed in negative or positive outcomes with the help of language. Because of this, people who want to mobilize masses, pay good attention to the words they use. It is important to figure out what the social category terms are that are used in communications of disasters. It’s also important to pay good attention to how the emergency event and the advice for this event are formed linguistically. If people hear that the context is described as panic, then they might not want to act and help, because they assume that everyone is behaving selfishly. Language has an impact on the psychological collectivity, and thus also an indirect impact on survival and well-being in disasters.

The crowd shouldn’t be seen as part of the problem in a social disaster, but as a social cure. A shared social identity gives rise to survival, coping and well-being in extreme events. Being a member of a psychological crowd in emergencies can be beneficial. The public needs to be empowered in order to facilitate collective resilience. The writers think that this is necessary. With this article, the writers hope that crowds can be seen as a positive thing in the social world.