Disaster related social behaviour : Summary of 50 years of research findings

ABSTRACT

This paper summarizes much although not all of what is known about overall disaster related social behavior. Drawing from a base of 50 years of social science research involving thousands of studies, we note the typical patterns of behavior at the individual, organizational, community and mass media level. The last is a surrogate for reactions at the societal level. To avoid interminable and specific documentation, readers are given a large bibliography that lists the major research literature examined for the purpose of this paper. Most disasters impact a community. However, there are non-community types of disasters, e.g., a plane crash in an isolated rural area. This affects behavioral responses (e.g., crash survivors do not receive the social support that emerges in a community when residents have undergone a common disaster experience). The 20 general observations below around which we organize our comments, are mostly about community disasters