Dangers promote altruism and cooperation: the case of the Bataclan attack

No one has forgotten the terrible night of November 13, 2015. It is now one of those moments, always too numerous, when each and every one of us remembers what he was doing when he learned what he was doing. happened. Six years later, there have been stories, written and filmed, where survivors tell their stories. With this study, this tragedy is now being told from a scientific point of view. What motivated the realization of such a study is a fairly widespread misconception in the field of social psychology, more precisely among researchers who study the behavior of crowds: ” According to some popular beliefs, danger reveals the worst part about us: when people panic, they engage in anti-social behavior. This is the first line of the research article published by Guillaume Dezecache and his collaborators in Public Library Of Science.

First contacts

In 2016, the researcher and his team came into contact with associations of victims by describing their study project. A naturally strained start to the relationship given the circumstances: ” initially, the issue of trust was paramount. I had to send a copy of my passport to one of the victims’ associations to show that I was not someone who wanted to make the lives of survivors more difficult than it already was ”, says Guillaume Dezecache. The interviews then took place at Saint-Antoine hospital, in Paris, in the wing dedicated to psychiatry. The researchers took a lot of precautions to avoid side effects in the participants: prior clinical questionnaire to assess possible post-traumatic symptoms, consultation with a psychiatrist and the presence of a doctor and health practitioners during the interviews.

Overall everything went well: “ the people who responded favorably to our request wanted to tell what had happened to them because they had not been able to do it in the media or to be able to do it in their family who, after a few months, could censor them in thinking that talking about it would hurt them ”, details Guillaume Dezecache. The researcher describes human and very generous people: “ when they came to the hospital, some exceeded their phobias for the backfires of motorcycles who came from outside. They all showed great kindness and unfailing patience ”.

The science behind the testimonials

Scientists obtained an average of 56 hours of interviews. After this data collection phase, the analysis work could be undertaken. The social episodes described by the participants were classified into several mutually exclusive categories: emotional support, information sharing, help physical, social norms, physical strength, ordering, carelessly. Then, the motivations underlying these social behaviors were also classified into three categories: individualistic, cooperative and altruistic. Finally, the researchers studied the influence of variables considered crucial on behavior, namely the possibility (or the impossibility) of escaping and being or not being confronted with the fire of the attackers. The conclusions drawn from these investigations are as follows: aid actions generally occur more often when the possibility of escape is low and when one is less at risk of being under fire from attackers. In addition, in the testimonies collected by the researchers, we see that the motivations behind the acts are more altruistic and cooperative than individualist.

Guillaume Dezecache tries to explain these results: “ we can explain these results by mobilizing the theory ofaffiliation social which assumes that when we are afraid or that we are threatened, we try to create a bond with others. If we are to believe the literature on attachment, at such times we are more afraid of facing the danger on our own rather than the danger itself. “This first explanation is perfectly illustrated in the testimony of one of the participants in the study:” I find myself lying on the floor, with people piled up so, I find myself with a couple in front of me, with the husband covering his wife, and she is terrified and uh … I talk to her. I tell him “don’t cry … don’t cry. What’s your name?” “ The second explanation consists of a memory and social bias: “ when people are asked to tell us about their Bataclan and they all come from victims’ associations, there is a collective story that takes place. They therefore have, perhaps, more tendency to remember collective and prosocial moments ”, suggests Guillaume Dezecache.

Does danger reveal the best in us?

If join the postulate who considers that panic = individualism and anti-social behavior is a mistake, generalized altruism constitutes the second side of the same coin that could be illustrated by the testimony of one of the participants in the study: ” the threat is still there, the terrorists are still there, so it’s really, uh, the hyper instinct … well I tell you, even I let go of my husband’s hand, well, the hyper selfish thing where I stand bar and there you go. And … uh well, I walk on bodies, but I can’t help it. And it’s, uh I’m not looking back … uh … Same, the bodies, the bodies that are in the hall, uh, I I, well for me they are dead, but I’m not going to check s ‘they are dead or not. “

In reality, Guillaume Dezecache thinks that the question of whether humans are prosocial or antisocial in an emergency situation makes no sense: ” Danger represents a collection of very specific situations with different physical configurations, so you can’t be that Manichean. The reactions are dependent on a contextualized danger and not on the danger in general. Humans are looking for social opportunities to get out of this. The bottom line is that often cooperation is the best way to deal with dangers. “

The limits and consequences of scientific analysis

Obviously, these data are not representative: 32 people questioned (2% of people present at the Bataclan that evening, with a high level of education, a high socio-economic status, demographic homogeneity, etc.), bias memory that we have mentioned, declaration bias (it is more difficult to evoke selfish actions even if the researchers have interview techniques to facilitate the speech of individuals), etc. The authors are very clear about this: “This data is worth what it is worth. We wanted them to be a reflection of what happened that night and it is clear that they never will be ”, regrets Guillaume Dezecache.

However, a large majority of studies in emergency situations point in the same direction in favor of a preference for prosocial behavior. Guillaume Dezecache concludes on this point: “ Researchers working on modelization evacuations need to incorporate more often into their model the idea that there is an attraction to other humans in an emergency and break away from the misconception of generalized panic. “