Collective resilience in mass emergencies and disasters: A new approach John Drury (University of Sussex) Steve Reicher (St Andrews University) Chris Cocking (London Metropolitan University) British Psychological Society Annual Conference 2009

Collective resilience in mass emergencies and disasters: A new approach Collective resilience in mass emergencies and disasters: A new approach Acknowledgements Richard Williams (University of Glamorgan) The research referred to in this presentation was made possible by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council Ref. no: RES

Models of resilience Personal resilience ‘a person’s capacity for adapting psychologically, emotionally and physically reasonably well and without lasting detriment to self, relationships or personal development in the face of adversity, threat or challenge’ (NATO guidelines, cited in Williams & Drury, 2009) Factors: Innate and acquired Developmental experiences Repertoires of knowledge Family, peer, school and employment relationships Life events Attachments

Models of resilience ‘Collective resilience’ Concept employed by a number of recent researchers (e.g., Almedon, 2005; Kahn, 2005) either descriptively: ‘Collective resilience refers to the coping processes that occur in reference to and dependent on a given social context’ (Hernández, 2002, p. 334). Or with reference largely to pre-existing social resources: ‘… collective resilience [is] understood as the bonds and networks that hold communities together, provides support and protection, and facilitates recovery in times of extreme stress, as well as resettlement. These social bonds are variously referred to as social networks, community facilities and activities, active citizenship, or social capital.....’ (Fielding & Anderson, 2008, p. 7)

‘Collective resilience’: A social psychological model Social identity → We trust and expect others to be supportive, practically and emotionally (Drury & Reicher, 1999) in turn, reduces anxiety and stress (Haslam et al., 2005) Shared definition of reality (legitimacy, possibility) In turn, allows co-ordination (Turner et al., 1987) In turn, enhances agency/power (the ability to organize the world around us to minimize the risks of being exposed to further trauma) Allows us to feel collective ownership of the plans and goals we make together (Haslam, 2004) Encourages us to express solidarity and cohesion Makes us see each other’s plight as our own and hence give support sometimes at a cost to our own personal safety (Levine et al., 2005)

‘Collective resilience’ (Drury, Cocking, & Reicher, 2009a, b; Williams & Drury, 2009) Origins of social identity and hence collective resilience: (i) existing group memberships (ii) emergent group memberships – ad hoc crowds Novel claims of this approach: The concept of resilience can be applied to ‘unstructured’ collectives (crowds) not just ‘communities’ The crowd as an adaptive mechanism –Previous research has (over-)emphasized psycho-social ‘vulnerability’ of emergency crowds (e.g. mass panic) –Being part of a psychological crowd can contribute to personal survival in an emergency

7 th July 2005 London bombings (Cocking, Drury, & Reicher, in press 2009b) Four bombs, 56 deaths, 700+ injuries. Emergency services didn’t reach all the survivors Immediately. Data Contemporaneous news- paper accounts: 141 Personal accounts: 127 Primary data: interviews, written responses: 17 Total: 146(+) witnesses, 90 of whom were survivors Material coded and counted: ‘panic’, help versus selfishness, threat of death, affiliation, unity…

Helping versus personal ‘selfishness’ (Helping: giving reassurance, sharing water, pulling people from the wreckage, supporting people up as they evacuated, make-shift bandages and tourniquets)

Accounting for help

Interview accounts: ‘unity’ ‘together’ ‘similarity’ ‘affinity’ ‘part of a group’ ‘everybody, didn’t matter what colour or nationality’ ‘you thought these people knew each other’ ‘teamness’[sic] ‘warmness’ ‘vague solidity’ ‘empathy’

Int: “can you say how much unity there was on a scale of one to ten?” LB 1: “I’d say it was very high I’d say it was seven or eight out of ten.” Int: “Ok and comparing to before the blast happened what do you think the unity was like before?” LB 1: “I’d say very low- three out of ten, I mean you don’t really think about unity in a normal train journey, it just doesn’t happen you just want to get from A to B, get a seat maybe” (LB 1)

Explaining crowd resilience in the London bombings Survivors were mostly commuters ‘We-ness’ was emergent Almost all who referred to unity referred to shared danger or ‘common fate’ Sounds like ‘Blitz spirit’? Disasters bring people together (Fritz, 1968; Clarke, 2002) The psych mechanism: ‘Common fate’ is a criterion for self-categorization (Turner et al., 1987)

Comparative event study Interviews with (21) survivors of (11) emergencies (Drury, Cocking, & Reicher, in press 2009a) Sinking ships (Jupiter, 1988; Oceanos, 1991) Harrods bomb (1983) Hotel fire (1971) Grantham train accident (2003) Tower block evacuations (2001, 2002) Bradford City fire (1985) Fatboy Slim Brighton beach party (2002) Ghana football stadium crush (2001), Hillsborough crush (1989)

Step 1: Constructing comparisons Low (n = 9) versus high (n = 12) identifiers Step 2: Origins of enhanced identification

Step 3: Comparing high and low identifiers on co- operation and selfishness

Step 4: Comparing low and high identifiers on orderliness and disorderliness

‘I don’t think people did lose control of their emotions and I think the restraint shown by.. particularly several of the.. individuals that I’ve mentioned I’ve talked about.. it was the degree of the capacity of people to help others who were clearly struggling, you know.. it’s it should be source of great pride to those people I think. [ ] I mean a lot of people were very.. as I was you know.. 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 I think controlling or tempering their emotions to help… try and remedy the situation and help others who were clearly struggling’ (Hillsborough 2)

Comparative event study - conclusions High-identification group more likely to report shared danger (‘common fate’) Evidence of solidarity across the data-set – no ‘mass panic’ BUT solidarity was greater for the high- identification group Solidarity involved strangers not just affiliates

Summary and conclusions In mass emergencies, resilience can be enhanced by psychological group membership The concept of ‘collective resilience’ offers a social psychological account of (adaptive) crowd behaviour in emergencies Reversal of perspective: crowd as solution not (psycho-social) problem in emergencies