The social psychology of CBRNe: Some issues for practitioners
Article for CBRNe World
Spring 2009
Dr John Drury
Department of Psychology
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH
UK
[18th February 2009]
CBRN emergencies have mercifully been few and far between, and terrorist
attacks using CBRN weapons even fewer. This has meant a lack of direct
research on how people react to such emergencies.
However, combining current models of crowd psychology with recent studies of
public reactions to conventional emergencies and terror attacks, we can draw a
number of specific inferences on the nature of mass responses to CBRN
emergencies. These in turn have policy and practice implications for those with
responsibility for managing such mass responses
In this brief discussion, I will focus largely on the example of chemical terror
attack, though many of the issues I raise will apply to other forms of emergency.
1. ‘Starburst’ versus ‘refusal’
A major worry for planners and the emergency services is that those immediately
affected by a chemical explosion will spontaneously disperse from the immediate
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scene. First, this means that contaminants could spread to the wider population.
Second, and relatedly, when mass decontamination teams arrive they may find
the majority of those they need to treat are no longer in the vicinity, and therefore
the process of decontamination is delayed until people refer themselves
subsequently.
Findings from our recent research study of crowd reactions to the London
bombings of July 7th 20051 is to a large extent consistent with this expectation of
starburst. Most survivors gradually moved away from the scene, many without
waiting for the medical treatment they needed, or indeed staying to provide the
police with witness statements.
However, this same emergency event, in line with 9-11, as well as with evidence
from countless smaller less dramatic emergencies, also illustrates the tendency
of many people to stay behind or at least delay their exit. The reasons for this
‘refusal’ can be grouped into three areas.
First, and most obviously, there is often an issue over the (delayed) interpretation
or underestimation of the seriousness of the event.2 Often the first signal of an
emergency is an alarm, and, as is well known, alarms are routinely ignored.
People remain in their offices and sit at their desks dismissing what they regard
as yet another ‘test’ or ‘false alarm’.
However, even faced with obvious danger – in the form of the dramatic visibility,
audibility or odour of an explosive attack – there are still people who delay their
evacuation from the scene.
Second, then, one of the major findings to come out of crowd research on
conventional fires (for example, in theatres) and similar emergencies is the
tendency of some people to remain with their friends and relatives. They prefer to
try to help their affiliates escape rather than evacuate as an individual.3 The
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tragic consequence is sometimes that a small group of friends or family members
will die together because they are delayed by their slowest, weakest member.4
Third, our research on the London bombings is one of a number of studies
suggesting that the ‘common fate’ of an emergency or disaster can create a
feeling of togetherness in a crowd of strangers.5 Most of the victims and survivors
of the London bombs were commuters, and were not amongst friends or family
members. Yet levels of help among survivors, both before the emergency
services got to them and afterwards, far outweighed acts of personal selfishness.
In a situation where no one knew for certain whether or not there were secondary
devices, whether the Underground tunnels would collapse and so on, those
dozens if not hundreds of people who delayed their own exit to offer practical and
emotional support to the strangers around them risked their own personal safety.
The emergence of a sense of psychological togetherness in a disaster crowd is
therefore suggested to be the basis for this willingness to delay exit. There is no
reason to assume that chemical or other non-conventional explosive attacks
would lead to a diminution in this natural human tendency to solidarity.
This issue of many people ‘refusing’ to leave when told or expected is just as
serious a consideration for the emergency services as the starburst taking place
simultaneously in the rest of the crowd. However, we perhaps need to think of
this ‘refusal’ as an opportunity rather than a further problem in the management
of crowds in CBRN emergencies. This argument is developed in the next point.
2. ‘Mass panic’ versus collective resilience
There is a dominant, common-sense view of crowd reactions to emergencies and
disasters: that of mass panic. This view of crowds over-reacting, behaving
instinctively and/or irratonally, becoming disorderly, divided and anti-social, is
sometimes replicated in supposedly scholarly accounts of CBRN emergencies.6
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However, the current consensus in the scientific community in regard to crowd
behaviour in general and mass responses to CBRN in particular7 is that mass
panic is a notion which mystifies more than explains.8 Crowd behaviour in
emergencies and disasters ranging from Hiroshima9 to the Kings Cross
Underground fire10 is in fact typically orderly, socially-structured, and cooperative.
Contemporary models of mass behaviour in emergencies therefore stress the
maintenance or creation of social bonds.11 Linking the idea of the ‘spontaneously
social’ crowd with the evidence of organizational improvisation during
emergencies (such as 9-11)12 we have proposed a model of collective resilience.
In this account, far from being a ‘social problem’, the psychological crowd is an
adaptive mechanism that enables people to coordinate and draw upon collective
sources of practical and emotional support to deal with the emergency or
disaster. Psychological togetherness in a crowd allows people to express and
expect solidarity and cohesion; it engenders mutual trust and support which in
turn reduces anxiety and stress; finally it promotes a sense of collective
ownership of the plans that survivors make together. The psychological crowd
gives its members the agency to organise the world around them to minimise the
risks of being exposed to further trauma.13
I argue below that this model of collective resilience has important implications
for those managing responses to all mass emergencies but for CBRNe in
particular.
3. Quarantine: A question of ‘legal’ or ‘health’ rights?
For the authorities, one of the main differences between managing a CBRNe
crowd and many other types of ‘problematic’ crowd event is that, while in the
latter case the strategy is one of dispersal, in the former it is containment. The
mass of people in the immediate vicinity of a chemical attack need to be
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decontaminated before they leave the area, not just for their own health and
safety but for the sake of that of the wider population.
However, depending on the precise mode of attack, a CBRN event may be more
ambiguous, and the extent of the threat initially less clear, than in a conventional
emergency, such as a simple bombing or fire. The pathogens or toxins may be
invisible, for example. For these reasons, it is incumbent on those in authority to
explain to the public why they must be ‘detained’.
From the perspective of the police, the last thing they need is for what is a
situation of public safety and health becoming one of ‘public (dis)order’. If there is
a widespread view in the crowd that their quarantine is an illegitimate attack on
their civil liberties, then far from the compliance the authorities require, there will
be opposition and even mass physical resistance.14
Of course the authorities will, one hopes, be trying to communicate with the
crowd: to explain what has happened, why people must be detained, and how
and when the decontamination will take place. Yet communication is a two-way
process. For information from the authorities to be believed and complied with,
there needs to be trust. In the current climate of widespread public cynicism
towards those in authority – when politicians are widely seen as insincere, and
when the police’s action is sometimes perceived as biased or politically
motivated – achieving trust in such a delicate situation is a major problem.
Yet if and when trust is achieved then it becomes possible to take advantage of
the opportunities afforded by the natural collective resilience of the emergency
crowd. In a large CBRN incident, it is possible that for some time the emergency
services will be overwhelmed. They will not have the numbers to implement the
communication, quarantine and subsequent decontamination necessary. There
is again a parallel here with our findings from the London bombings. As they
waited for the emergency services to arrive, it was the survivors themselves who
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tied tourniquets round each others’ bleeding limbs, dressed each others’ wounds
with make-shift bandages, and provided other forms of mutual aid for the
collective good. In effect the crowd acted as the fourth emergency service.
How do we get to the point of empowering a crowd in a frightening and
dangerous CBRN emergency to take ownership of its own health and safety in
this way? The innovation I have been recommending is based on the observation
that, as already mentioned, a CBRN incident is essentially a matter of ‘health’
rather than ‘public order’. If this is the case, then the established policy of having
the police as the public face of all instructions to and management of the public
needs to be questioned. The police as the public face of the authorities in a
CBRN incident, with their background of reacting to crowds in terms of a ‘public
order’ rather than ‘community policing’ model,15 could easily raise questions in
people’s minds about the trustworthiness and legitimacy of the whole operation.
The police’s role and specialism is ultimately and essentially the physical
enforcement of law, order or government will. So their attempt to manage a
CBRN situation could easily create a situation in which the context is perceived
by crowd members as one of potential conflict between opposing forces rather
than one of mutual health and safety.
Therefore, I am suggesting that the ‘public face’ of the authorities in CBRN
incidents should not be the police but the medical profession. Information and
instructions that take the form of ‘doctors’ orders’ are far less likely to create
antagonism than those from the police. In turn, such orders are more likely to
engender compliance in the crowd, who are then more likely to take ownership of
and collective responsibility for the task of containment and decontamination.
Empowered and united in this way, members of the crowd will give and expect
support from each other in the consensually shared endeavour of public health
protection in an emergency.
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Moreover, within this context, those few members of the public who reject the
collective will do not need to be arrested or otherwise physically apprehended by
the police. The crowd will police itself and ensure conformity to what is perceived
to be a matter of both civic duty and collective self-interest.
Conclusion
The discussion points raised here have been developed not only from academic
research and theory, but also from dialogue with a number of relevant
professional groups. These include: the Joint Royal Colleges Ambulance Liaison
Committee; the Police National CBRN centre (which has now embodied some of
the principles outlined here in their training and documentation); the Department
of Health and NATO emergencies and disasters consultation;16 and the Royal
United Services Institute seminar on the role of the media in emergencies. It will
be of interest to see the response to the issues raised here from other CBRNe
professionals.
Biographical note
Dr John Drury is Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology in the Department of
Psychology, University of Sussex. His main research interests are in features of
crowd behaviour, including crowds as locations of social psychological change
and sources of resilience. He has published nearly 40 academic papers, and
speaks regularly at international conferences. He also is involved in a number of
projects to communicate his work and act as a consultant to end-users, including
through his research web-site http://www.sussex.ac.uk/affiliates/panic/ and via a
Continued Professional Development course on the ‘Psychology of Crowd
Management’. He can be contacted by e-mail at j.drury@sussex.ac.uk
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References
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Drury, J., Cocking, C., & Reicher, S. (in press, 2009). The nature of collective
resilience: Survivor reactions to the 2005 London bombings. International Journal of
Mass Emergencies and Disasters.
2
Aguirre, B.E. (2005). Commentary on ‘Understanding mass panic and other collective
responses to threat and disaster’: Emergency evacuations, panic, and social
psychology. Psychiatry, 68, 121-129.
3
Johnson, N.R. (1988). Fire in a crowded theatre: A descriptive investigation of the
emergence of panic. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 6, 7-26.
4
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Supper Club Fire. In R.R. Dynes & K.J. Tierney (Eds.), Disasters, collective behaviour
and social organization (pp. 168-189). Newark: University of Delaware Press.
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Drury, J., Cocking, C., & Reicher, S. (in press, 2009). Everyone for themselves? A
comparative study of crowd solidarity among emergency survivors. British Journal of
Social Psychology, 48
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Crimando, S. (2007). Flashpoint. Intersect, 17, 26-28
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