The phenomenology of ‘panic’

1. The phenomenology of ‘panic’ Discourse and experience in survivors’ accounts of mass emergencies Chris Cocking & John Drury University of Sussex cpc20@sussex.ac.uk 11/9/2006

2. Outline • The concept of ‘Panic’ in mass emergencies • Hillsborough football disaster • July 7th 2005 bombings • Conclusions/implications

3. The Panic Model • Part of the irrationalist tradition, drawing from Le Bon (1896) ‘The crowd’ • Reflected in popular discourse: • a) Threat causesemotion to overwhelm reason • b) Collective identity breaks down • c) Selfish behaviour- pushing trampling etc • d) Contagion-these acts spread to whole crowd

4. The self-categorisation approach • Derives from Turner’s Self-Categorisation Theory (SCT), and Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory (SIT) • Disasters can create a common identity- Furedi (2004) or sense of ‘we-ness’- Clarke (2001), • This common identity can result in orderly, altruistic behaviour as people escape common threat • Increased threat can enhance common identity • Evidence so far supports SCT approach

5. Hillsborough football disaster • FA Cup semi-final 1989 • 96 Liverpool fans died in crush • Mismanagement of crowd to blame, but claims of crowd trouble by some-anger still exists to this day • IPA done on interviews with 3 survivors to look at concept of panic

6. I don’t think people did lose control of their emotions and I think the restraint shown[ ] should be source of great pride to those people [ ] they were clearly in control of their own emotions and their own physical insecurity, I mean [ ]you’re being pushed, you’re being crushed when you’re hot and bothered, you’re beginning to fear for your own personal safety, and yet they were [ ] controlling or tempering their emotions to help try and remedy the situation and help others who were clearly struggling

7. one didn’t have the capacity physically to panic. You couldn’t move, so panic became things like breathlessness.. people losing consciousness [ ]but that’s really a physical degree of [ ]I have to say that two people that struck me as panicking most were those police officers and it really was discomforting [ ]particularly because one of them was on a horse and when you’re on a horse you have a vantage point because you can see what’s happening and when you’re also looking at someone ten feet away and they’re panicking because of what they can see and you can’t see it

8. panic as gloss? once blind panic has set in I would think that was that was the main part every everyone really panicked- sheer panic the police panicked the crowd panicked everyone panicked

9. Panic or survival? I would never ever [ ]consider stepping on a dead body. I did that to save myself because I panicked [ ]I thought to myself look I’m either going to step [ ]on he or she to get out of this and live or die. The choice was that simple. I hope that would be an example of panic because I was certainly panicked

10. Co-operation when possible when people got over the fence they[ ]tried to pull people out. [ ]I had a grip on this person [ ]I distinctively remember trying to pull him out but the crowd had a vicelike grip on him it was next to impossible [ ]but everyone would have tried anything possible you know they pulled all the hoardings down and made temporary stretchers for people to take them over to the mortuary. the fans were fantastic

11. Denial of Panic I can’t think of any examples no[ ] I can see people wandering dazed [ ] but I can’t see in my images anyone doing irrational you know people can say well I panicked and I had to get out but that’s rational behaviour that’s not panic behaviour, so no not in the classical mythical sense

12. July 7th 2005 • 8 interviews analysed so far • 7/8 make spontaneous references to panic in some degree • But when asked directly, 7/8 deny that there was mass panic

13. there might have been some panic with the people who were hyperventilating so[ ] I probably only saw 1 or 2 people hyperventilating but in terms of trying to smash windows open it was all controlled it was one window that was smashed it was to help other people there weren’t people trying to open up hatches on their own. there were people trying to let fresh air in, but there was no-one trying to like run out of the train on their own in a mad panic

14. Denial of panic Int: ok so do you think anybody panicked from what you saw LB5 I think people remained calm, people were upset but they didn’t, I didn’t see anyone panicking rushing round tearing round shouting

15. Vocal panic? LB7 quite a lot of people probably panicked when it first happened, yeah Int: and can you remember what they were doing that made you think that they were panicking? LB7 um screaming really loudly yeah

16. Int: is this something you can put on a scale of 1-10 of how calm you think the general mood was? LB7 in the first sort of few seconds after it um I guess overall so if 1 is calm and 10 is not calm, yeah, um probably around 8/9 because there were a lot of people really hysterical but then some people were still in control, but then by the time I had got out and could walk around everything seemed quite calm. [ ]I don’t know say 5 or something because it was still a really crazy situation and stuff but people were relatively calm

17. Why is the ‘p’ word used so often ? • Quite liberal use of the term ‘panic’ in our data • But this usage doesn’t always stand up to scrutiny, and accounts are often qualified or contradictory • Often used to contrast panicked behaviour of individuals with crowd as a whole • Reflects general mistrust of the crowd by some groups in society?

18. Summary • Panic is often used to describe behaviour in mass emergencies • However the term is often a gloss that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny • More than just semantics as emergency planning often based on fear of mass panic

20. Any questions/ comments? • Do you have any experiences of the London bombings you are willing to share? • please visit www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~dzs/londonbomb/index.htm if you do