Out Risk Taking Behaviour

You and I – we have many things in common – both of us tend to behave and react in an amazingly similar fashion and our risk taking behaviour makes brings us close .

You have every right to consider your personality to be unique, and therefore you might well disagree.

But then, when cornered or under severe threat, we both are charged with an urge to save ourselves, and such situations brings forth what we all have been hard-wired by evolution.

During such situations you either try to threaten the adversary by your gestures – inflated chest, flared nostrils, clenched fists, grinding teeth and sneered face, or you prepare for the worst and try saving the vitals – brain, heart, liver, lung and kidney by covering head and chest with your hands, and look for an opportunity of fleeing to safety.

Yes, our basic instincts have been designed and programmed by evolution, and their basic purpose is to ensure that we survive, and are able to procreate.

Positivity Bias

Evolution has at the same time infused a lot of positivity in us. This positivity bias often makes us ignore the threats, and knowingly take risk.

You might consider this an unnecessary evil, but then without this risk taking instinct, we might  still be living high up from the ground, on the trees.

It is the positivity bias that ensured that our ancestors leave the safety of trees, and descend to the ground that was full of predators, with not many places to look for safety. You might take it lightly but if you consider the fact that we humans are highly unspecialised, we neither have claws or canines to threaten the predators nor speed or shell to save ourselves. So, descending to the ground was a big bold decision that required not only guts but also positivity.

Risk Assessment

Like me you might also be in the business of hazard, risk and vulnerability assessment.

If so, you are sure to attribute this skill of yours to your specialized training and experience. May be in the field of GIS and remote sensing, or geology, environmental science, climatology and hydrology.

With so much time, energy and money invested in learning this craft, you have every right to think that the common man out there on the streets is ignorant of hazards and risks around them, and have no perception of these.

It is really going to be hard for you, as an expert, to believe that we all – including the ones on the streets, are hard-wired to sense danger or evaluate risk. And this is our another gift of evolution.

For that matter, we intuitively know that certain situations and creatures can harm us. We all intuitively react differently to the sight of a snake and a common house lizard or gecko, and these reactions are natural and universal, and guided by our intuition.

Believe me, no one has ever taught us to react that way.

The Dilemma

So, we all gifted to sense danger. Yet we are hard-wired to be positive.

This brings forth a dilemma.

So despite sensing the danger, I tend to perceive that I am not going to be affected.

The safety measures or precautions therefore seem to be applicable for others, and not for me, because I am not going to be affected.

So the warnings and precautions seem to be applicable for Pundit ji, Thakur sahib, or Ansari ji or Mr. Mathews. And all these have to be careful and vigilant, but not me.

• So, I don’t wear seat belt or helmet while driving.
• I resort to over speeding and drunk driving.
• I don’t keep a first aid box at home, leave apart an emergency kit that disaster managers recommend.
• I also ignore warnings.

All this is because of positivity bias infused false sense of safety, wherein all precautions and safety measures seem to be unnecessary, useless and burdensome.

In such a scenario do you really expect me to consult a structural engineer for checking seismic safety of my house or me getting my house insured?

Right you are, as expected I have resorted to none of these.

Mass Mentality

Now think of a situation where majority population starts to behave like me.

It is really not an exaggeration, but majority does behave like me.

So despite being aware of the hazards and risk posed by these, most people ignore safety measures and precautions.

And this is one of the reasons for increasing toll of hazards, and these often turning into a major disaster.

The Way Out

So, for bringing forth disaster resilience we have to overcome our evolutionary programming and bring forth changes in our behavior and attitude. Though not easy, this can be achieved and in our lifetime we have witnessed a number of significant behavioural changes.

• Urge for having a male child has decreased significantly. Many friends of childhood days were born after a number of sisters, and were treated like princes. And today I know of many friends with sole girl child.
• Likewise family planning has become a norm for most people and most friends around don’t have more than two children.
• These days we don’t care as to who (which caste) actually has prepared the food being served, unless we wish to particularly appreciate and thank the Chef.
• We all eat sitting across a table.
• We all have started to use cutlery – at least spoon, if not a fork and knife.

Mass awareness really holds the key for heralding attitudinal changes, but what has been imprinted in our brain over thousands of years of evolution cannot really be undone overnight.

This fact is evident from family planning experience that took almost 3 to 4 decades of aggressive campaigning, that started with red triangles of the emergency times, to change the attitude of the masses. Various advertisements we come by these days are for product promotion and not really for family planning related canvassing.

Well planned and programmed, aggressive and sustained mass awareness campaign is therefore required, and  if continued for a decade or so, our attitude towards hazards can well change and this new learning can help us overcome our evolutionary programming.

Whatever the reasons, our disaster managers have failed miserably in addressing this important issue. Hope some of them pay heed to this.