Why most people prefer to die without a murmur in a dangerous situation and refuse to run and evacuate

The war between Russia and Ukraine has been going on for almost a year. Meanwhile, psychologists are sounding the alarm: despite the obvious danger to life, most Ukrainians do not want to leave their homes. At the end of last year, the Kiev branch of the Institute for Behavioral Studies, American University, prepared a study according to which even residents of settlements located near the front line neglect calls for evacuation. Moreover, many ignore the air raid signals and prefer to stay in the apartment under rocket fire. About what caused this behavior, and how to change it, ForumDaily talked with the famous Russian and American psychologist Olga Podolskaya.

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Getting out of the discomfort zone

According to the psychologist, the basis of the carelessness inherent in most people is the classical mechanism of adaptation, that is, getting used to an extreme situation.

«The importance of our getting used to the conditions in which we live, on the one hand, is our good, because it allows us to adapt to what cannot be changed. But it is also our curse when we begin to get used to what can and should be changed. It is commonly said that it is difficult for people to leave their comfort zone. In fact, it is difficult for a person to change the environment to which he is accustomed - even if he is very uncomfortable to be in it.", Explains Olga Podolskaya.

According to her, even such a seemingly trifle as familiar objects in the apartment, a favorite sofa and a familiar view from the window can create a feeling of normal life, which will naturally collapse in the event of a move. Against this background, people get used to periodic power outages and the howl of air sirens, rejoicing that the main attributes of the former "normality" are still preserved.

As for descending into the basement during an air raid, Olga, who works remotely with people staying in Ukraine, notes that the inconvenience often caused by shelling is in some ways comparable to evacuation, that is, they cause a serious disruption to the normal course of life.

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«If in the first months of the war Russia fired several missiles at once and the shelling, as a rule, ended there, now Moscow has changed tactics. It fires rockets in batches over many hours. At the same time, the missiles themselves are not at all accurate, and constantly fall into residential facilities. This is, without exaggeration, a terrorist war against civilians.", - the psychologist is sure.

Nevertheless, Olga Podolskaya admits that even though they understand the brutality of the enemy and the risks associated with it, the majority of Ukrainians are increasingly ignoring the signals of shelling.

Most people are at risk of being burned in a fire

According to the psychologist, such behavior is characteristic of absolutely all people. For example, California cops and rescuers find people reluctant to leave wildfires almost every year and are very hard to convince to do so. In this regard, Olga Podolskaya recalls an experiment repeated many times in various countries. People who did not know each other were invited under the pretext of some other, fictitious study, and asked to fill out paperwork before it began. At this time, smoke began to fill the room.

The results of the study were disappointing: as a rule, 7 out of 8 subjects (and sometimes all 8) continued to fill out paperwork. The experiment was stopped when people began to cough and choke.

«Studies have shown that everyone who, relatively speaking, "saved" in this situation, had one common property: they began to react to smoke in the first 5 seconds after it appeared. This does not mean that they immediately ran out of the building, but as soon as these people noticed something unusual, they immediately got up, approached the smoke, sniffed, and so on. As it turned out, if a person did not get up to ask about the smoke in the first 20 seconds, while he still did not feel its effects on himself, he no longer got up at all. In other words, in a real fire situation, all these people would burn”, – sums up Olga Podolskaya.

Rigidity or impulse

According to the psychologist, the behavior of people who reacted to smoke is not associated with stress or increased anxiety. It is explained only by the fact that some of the participants in the experiment succumbed to the first impulse, while others were focused on the task he proposed - filling out paperwork.

«In general, the ability to finish what you started and control your emotionality and impulsiveness is a good quality under normal conditions. It is called rigidity and is expressed in the unwillingness or even inability of a person to change the program of activity outlined by him in conditions that require its restructuring. It is this that leads to the fact that most would burn out in a fire.", Concludes Olga.

In ordinary life, people do not fill out specific papers, but they are focused on their usual activities: frying potatoes, working, or even relaxing in nature. The focus on their usual life does not allow them to switch and realize the danger at the stage when a direct threat to life is not yet obvious. Then it is often too late.

Knowing this feature of people, the police in the United States try to personally come to every house subject to evacuation, and by all means insist that people leave.

«I know of a case where, during the wildfires in California, the police were forced to light fires and insist that people who were having picnics there go home, while they continued to grill and play the guitar”, Olga shares.

How to help people get saved

According to Olga Podolskaya, such a focus on one's everyday life is very important for the stable functioning of the psyche. However, it is she who prevents a person from saving his life when there is still an opportunity for this. There are three steps that help overcome rigidity and decide to evacuate.

The first step is more dependent on local authorities. The authors of the study for American University emphasize that it is important for people to be offered a specific evacuation plan and step-by-step instructions on what exactly they should do. The prospect of "going nowhere" or a rough idea of ​​the possibilities of going out sharply reduces the motivation and determination of people.

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«Second, ideally, there should be a personal warning to each person about the need to evacuate. It is clear that in Ukraine, in a war, unlike the United States, it is impossible to organize such a thing. Therefore, it is important for people themselves to find a person with whom they will discuss the evacuation together. It can be people in chats who share routes with each other, or neighbors with whom you agreed to go down to the basement together during an air raid. Together it is much easier psychologically to decide on changes. That is why it is often more difficult for lonely people to leave, although it would seem that nothing keeps them at home - they have no one to discuss the very possibility of leaving with.", Explains Olga Podolskaya.

The third point is the very knowledge of rigidity and other properties of the psyche, which in extreme situations involuntarily reduce a person's ability to survive. Knowing how the psychological mechanism works, one can consciously go against it, while delaying the necessary decisions, on the contrary, aggravates the situation.

«In order to get used to an abnormal, stressful situation, a person touches a huge resource, and therefore becomes weaker. Naturally, in this state, he has even less internal strength in order to decide on an evacuation.", - the psychologist warns.

Among other things, Olga Podolskaya advises not to imitate the behavior of other people and not to shift responsibility for your life onto them.

«Do not forget that most people tend not to escape in case of fire. By the way, people often do not call the emergency services for a long time, because they are sure that someone else has already done this. In the end, no one calls. Do not forget that only you are responsible for your life.", - reminds Olga.

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