Behavioural, emotional, and cognitive responses in European disasters: results of survivor interviews

Abstract

In the European multi‐centre study BeSeCu (Behaviour, Security, Culture), interviews were conducted in seven countries to explore survivors’ emotional, behavioural, and cognitive responses during disasters. Interviews, either in groups or one‐to‐one, were convened according to type of event: collapse of a building; earthquake; fire; flood; and terror attack. The content analysis of interviews resulted in a theoretical framework, describing the course of the events, behavioural responses, and the emotional and cognitive processing of survivors. While the environmental cues and the ability to recognise what was happening varied in different disasters, survivors’ responses tended to be more universal across events, and most often were adaptive and non‐selfish. Several peri‐traumatic factors related to current levels of post‐traumatic stress were identified, while memory quantity did not differ as a function of event type or post‐traumatic stress. Time since the event had a minor effect on recall. Based on the findings, several suggestions for emergency training are made.

Helping behavior in a virtual crisis situation: effects of safety awareness and crisis communication

“…The most frequent reaction was to first contact the victim in order to find out what was going on, followed by calling for an ambulance through the emergency number. This result confirms evidence for prosocial behavior in emergency situations (Fischer et al 2011;Grimm et al 2014). Even when there are clear conflicting goals (in our task, participants were instructed to be in time for a job interview), participants took time to arrange help for the victims and half the participants even stayed at the scene until the end of the scenario.…”

“…An overall conclusion from disaster studies is that citizens do not passively wait for professional help, but take action in order to cope with the situation at hand (Grimm et al 2014;Helsloot and Ruitenberg 2004;Prati, Catufi, and Pietrantoni 2012). At first sight, this conclusion seems to be in contrast with the well-studied bystander effect, which states that an individual is less likely to help when there are other persons around (Fischer et al 2011;Latané and Nida 1981).…”

Human responses to disasters: A pilot study on peritraumatic emotional and cognitive processing

“…Additionally, the peritraumatic feeling of anger was assessed with the items angry and annoyed. As "panic" during disasters has been reported by survivors in current interview studies, albeit with differing quantities of statements (Grimm, Hulse, Preiss, & Schmidt, 2011a;Prati, Catufi, & Pietrantoni, 2012), it was decided to include this item in the questionnaire.…”

“…Also, a self-selection bias might have been present; survivors with disorganized and incomplete memories or heightened emotional states due to severe traumatic stress might have avoided taking part in the interviews and cognitive debriefings and so the results on emotions and cognitions might only pertain to survivors with less of a posttraumatic stress outcome (Grimm, Hulse, Preiss, & Schmidt, 2011a). As discussed earlier, there were very few significant differences in answers between real survivors and scenario participants and this could also be a function of the low number of real disaster survivors in the sample.…”

“…), as well as the victim"s surroundings (e.g. being in a familiar place, being with relatives/known persons), can be relevant to not just emotional/cognitive processing during the event but also later posttraumatic stress (Grimm, Hulse, Preiss, & Schmidt, 2011a;Prati, Catufi, & Pietrantoni, 2012;Sotgiu & Galati, 2007).…”