E. L. Quarantelli, Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware
To be published in Smelser and Baltes (eds) International Encyclopedia of the Social
and Behavioral Sciences in 2001.
※ 메모: Quarantelli, E., 1954. "The nature and conditions of panic." American Journal of Sociology
60:265-275.
ABSTRACT:
The term "panic" is widely used in everyday speech as well as in the
literature of different professional areas and scientific disciplines. This
article confines itself primarily to discussing how sociologists, historically and
currently, view the phenomena. The justification for such a focus is that the
concept has long been used in the discipline especially in the sociological
subspeciality of collective behavior, and much of the relevant empirical work
has been done by sociologists studying behavior in natural and
technological disasters.
Early approaches to panic were vague in defining the phenomena.
However, most formulations view panic as either extreme and groundless
fear, or flight behavior. Both phenomena are supposedly widespread in
crisis situations. Present day discussions about panic also revolve around
whether or not the behavior is irrational, and whether it is highly contagious
or not. Three major empirical studies that have heavily influenced present
day sociological views about panic are presented. Two of the studies
particularly challenge widespread ideas in the literature about the
phenomena, showing for example that panic flight is very rare, and has few
of the characteristics typically attributed to the behavior, even in situations
where it might be expected.
There are two questions that will loom even larger in the future. One is why
despite the research evidence, the idea of "panic" captures the popular
imagination and continues to be evoked by scholars of human behavior. A
second basic question is whether there is still any scientific justification for
the continuing use of the concept in any technical sense in the collective
behavior area.
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