Slick on common behaviours in any crisis

Disaster management expert Assoc. Prof. Jean Slick discusses the eight common behaviours in any crisis, from war to pandemic, in an article she penned for The Conversation Canada.  

Here is an excerpt:

As an academic who teaches disaster management programs, I’ve studied how people react during different types of disasters. There are common patterns in the ways people come together to respond to these kinds of events — regardless of whether the trigger was a natural hazard, technologically based or human-caused…

Myths about social breakdown during disasters still prevail and continue to be used by media to frame societal response to certain types of crises, but the way that people actually respond is primarily pro-social.

When communities are impacted by events that threaten life and safety, the response is typified by the convergence of people, information and materials.

Each of the following eight common types of behaviours associated with citizen response to past crises and disasters have also been seen during the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe. The behaviours are not mutually exclusive, but do reflect different motivations.

Read more in The Conversation Canada.