9/13/2023 0 Comments Panic mode![]() ![]() Similarly, some people have biases toward optimism or pessimism. “It’s that ease of simulating that scenario that then overwhelms our judgements of the probability,” Bishop says. When we’ve heard or read about something a lot-for instance, a plane crash covered extensively in the news-it becomes so easy to imagine oneself in a plane that’s crashing that one may overestimate the risk of flying. When we don’t have a model for how to handle a threat, Bishop says, many people turn to model-based learning, a framework in which we either try to recall examples from the past or simulate future possibilities.Īnd that’s where “availability bias” creeps in. This approach is essentially trial and error: we rely on our personal experiences and gradually update our estimates of how likely something is to happen, how bad it would be if it does happen, and how much effort we need to put in to prevent it. Ideally, Bishop says, we should be taking an approach called model-free learning to assess our risk in the face of uncertainty. “We’re not used to living in situations where we have rapidly changing probabilities,” Bishop says. Inconsistent messaging from governments, the media, and public health authorities-such as all the varied recommendations on social distancing-fuels anxiety. Sonia Bishop, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California Berkeley who researches how anxiety affects decision-making, says that’s particularly true now during the coronavirus pandemic. Humans are notoriously bad at assessing risk in the face of uncertainty-and we’re often bad at it in different ways that cause us to overestimate or underestimate our personal risks. How uncertainty can drive panicīut if we’re deluged with information and messaging during this pandemic, why are some people hoarding toilet paper and hand sanitizer during this pandemic while others are dismissing the risks and packing into bars? That’s when it’s essential for the frontal cortex to remain in control, alerting you to the possibility of a threat while also taking the time to assess the risk and make a plan to act. Panic doesn’t help much with long-term threats either. “This disintegration of social norms… sometimes results in the shattering of the strongest primary group ties.” “Panic, rather than being antisocial, is a nonsocial behavior,” Quarantelli wrote. It was only when she realized the explosion had occurred across the street that she remembered she had left her baby behind. In his 1954 work, “ The Nature and Conditions of Panic,” Enrico Quarantelli, a sociologist who conducted ground-breaking research on how humans behave during disasters, told the story of a woman who heard an explosion and fled her house, thinking a bomb had hit it. Here’s the science behind how our brains react to threats.īut listening just to the amygdala can come with serious drawbacks. We don’t want our brains to spend too much time debating that.įear and anxiety may not be pleasant, but both are important emotions to our human evolution. When we’re in immediate danger of being mauled by a lion or run over by a car, the most rational response may be flight, fight, or freeze. In certain scenarios, panic can be life-saving. Your fear is so acute that the amygdala takes over and adrenaline kicks in. “Panic happens when that more rational part of your brain gets overrun by emotion,” Koenen says. While our frontal cortex wants to think about where the lions may be tomorrow night, our amygdalas are in overdrive. Panic happens when the whole thing short-circuits. ![]() Rather than talking directly to the parts of our brains that are good at planning and making decisions, the frontal cortex gets confused by all the cross-talk between other parts of the brain that are determined to play out all the possible scenarios for how we might become a lion’s dinner. When might we run into a lion again, and what to do about it? ![]() Koenen explains that the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain, wants us to get out of harm’s way immediately-and it doesn’t care how we avoid the lion.īut the frontal cortex, which handles your behavioral responses, insists that we think the lion situation through first. Panic starts when a negotiation of sorts in the brain goes awry. Human survival has depended on both fear and anxiety, requiring us to react immediately when we encountered a threat (think: the lion around the corner) as well as being able to mull over perceived threats (where are the lions tonight?) Chan School of Public Health.īut what exactly causes us to panic-and how can we keep our cool in a high-stress time like a pandemic? It depends on how different areas of the brain play along with each other. It’s because people feel like their survival is threatened and they need to do something to feel like they’re in control,” explains Karestan Koenen, professor of psychiatric epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. ![]()
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