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[Below is the original script. But a few changes may have been made during the recording of this audio podcast.]
We’re in the middle of storm season in the U.S. bookended between spring tornadoes and summer hurricanes. And this is a special two-part 60-Second Psych on the surprising ways humans react to and deal with severe weather.
This past month I was embedded with the tornado-chasing scientists of VORTEX2 and I caught up with Jaqui Wilmshurst, a PhD student in the psychology department at the University of Sheffield, who was also traveling alongside the meteorologists, exploring human behavior in severe weather.
[The complete transcript of this special episode will be posted within the week.]
—Christie Nicholson
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4 Comments
Add CommentAs an emergency management professional with 25 years experience, I am very familiar with this phenominon. I call it the "personal competency illusion". Specifically, that by seeing and accessing the threat directly, humans feel they alone are able to decide how to respond. To use an analogy... most of us get nervous when riding with a driver who is driving recklessly. Yet we can take the wheel and drive in the same manner but feel at ease. Why? Because all humans have the illusion that their skills are superior to others. As for impending disasters, we perceive general warnings as sufficient for everyone else, but not relevant to our own response.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an emergency management professional with 25 years experience, I am very familiar with this phenominon. I call it the "personal competency illusion". Specifically, that by seeing and accessing the threat directly, humans feel they alone are able to decide how to respond. To use an analogy... most of us get nervous when riding with a driver who is driving recklessly. Yet we can take the wheel and drive in the same manner but feel at ease. Why? Because all humans have the illusion that their skills are superior to others. As for impending disasters, we perceive general warnings as sufficient for everyone else, but not relevant to our own response.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@DACme: "personal competency illusion"....very elegantly stated. Loved the reckless driving analogy. That is so true! I think you're on to something here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally helpful info thanks - and in line with similar findings about fear of flying where many people say that the fear is more about lack of personal control than about height, for example. I was out on Vortex2 to gather information for future studies and find the communities themselves a great help, but I have found info from disaster management experts really useful too due to your direct experience of these phenomena on the ground. I hope to gather more data on the subject soon.
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