Emergency Management References: Conventional Beliefs and Counterintuitive Realities

Today's Reading Reference reflects on the psychological actions and reactions people have when impacted from disasters and catastrophes respectfully, and how to plan accordingly. Enrico L. Quarantelli provides views regarding myths surrounding six areas of social behavioral aspects. He helps the reader understand how disaster operations plans should consider these factors when developing and acting on the plans.

Quarantelli begins by defining the different types of collective crises used for the evaluation. Some of these include natural and technological events, conflict crises (riots, acts of terrorism, etc), and emerging kinds of events (such as SARS and massive computer system disruptions). He also provides a set of characteristics for a catastrophe and the social results from the event. Basically, the myths hold true no matter what type of crises (disaster or catastrophe) occurs.


He then shares the behavioral aspects where myths were found and the observations making them myths. The six areas are: panic, antisocial behavior, passivity in emergencies, role conflict and role abandonment, sudden and widespread mental health breakdowns, and locus (or source) of problems.




This article can be found here, at the University of Delaware Library's Institutional Repository.