Perception and responsibility of adolescents for solving crisis situations
Master Thesis Leiden University
Student: Tom Stoot Studentnumber: 1765736
Date: 8-6-2017
Supervisor: Dr. Menno Ezinga Second reader: Dr. Joery Matthys
I. Preface
I started the master Crisis and Security Management after I got interested in the security aspects of organizing events during my bachelor study Event Management. I was specifically interested in how the behaviour of visitors could be influenced in order to increase security. I expected to do research in this area for my master thesis as well. Instead, I got pulled into a whole new and fascinating realm of international security, terrorism, violence, private security companies and intelligence networks. And eventually the subject in which I ended for my master thesis: Crisis Management. Or more specifically, the actions of civilians in a crisis situation.
Finding one subject for my master thesis and completing this research was a long road. It was more difficult than I expected at the beginning of this Masters, and it was a tour I never could have finished without the help of some very friendly people, which I will mention below.
Menno Ezinga, my supervisor, for the questions and critique which made me rethink and rewrite my ideas more times than I can count.
Maartje Meesters, for all the support, ideas, and study time we have had together. My friends, for telling me to relax and often encouraging me to do so.
My family, for supporting me, inspiring me and letting me use their professional network. Those who made the contact with potential participants of the target group possible, specifically Dus Schoenmakers and Maartje Jonkers for their efforts in bringing me in contact with their students.
And last but not least, all the participants I had the pleasure to interview, thank you for your time and your interesting answers.
I hope you enjoy reading my master thesis. Kind regards,
II. Executive Summary
This master thesis researches participating civilians during a crisis. It aims to answer the question “How do adolescents perceive crises and the responsibility for solving crises?” by a qualitative research. 24 adolescents aged 16 to 20 have answered questions in a semi-structured interview and took part in three vignettes displaying crisis situations.
The stance of both government and civilians about what the role is of each party during a crisis has changed in the past centuries. Formerly, civilians were on their own and governments could at most send the army to clear the rubble a few days after a disaster had struck. More modern governments have switched towards taking full responsibility and trying to reduce citizen participation in favour of a professional emergency response. In the last decade, however, this change seems to be reverted as well, with more responsibility given to these participating civilians again. The government is still struggling with how to incorporate these civilians.
Results from the data gathered in this research point towards several misconceptions of adolescents with regards to crises. Although adolescents seem to be better prepared, having had basic first aid and CPR, they do not regard this knowledge as being useful enough during a crisis situation. The decision making process during a crisis is largely rational, and the majority took the responsibility for their own safety seriously. The respondents also thought they would not really be needed. Two major reasons for this is the great trust in the emergency services and the idea that helping civilians will be asked to leave the crisis area as soon as the emergency services arrive, which makes
civilians feel unnecessary.
Structurally integrating participating civilians in crisis management plans could increase the short-term capacity of dealing with a crisis. Other research has found that emergency services which have experienced participating civilians are overwhelmingly positive about their help, but that there was no attention for it during the crisis exercises or preparations.
A severe limitation of this research was its small pool of respondents, so conclusions cannot be taken as representative of the whole study population. A recommendation is to repeat this research with a larger pool of respondents, as well as looking at different cultures and countries to see if their adolescents would react differently.
III. Contents
Title Page
I. Preface 2
II. Executive Summary 3
III. Contents 4
4. Introduction 5
4.1 Introduction 5
4.2 Academic and Societal relevance 6
4.3 Problem Outline 8
4.4 Literature review 10
4.4.1 History of Crisis Management 10
4.4.2 Cooperation with Civilians 11
4.4.3 Risk Communication and Perception 14
4.4.4 Taking Responsibility 15
4.4.6 Decision Making 15
4.4.6 Adolescents in the Context of their Community 18
4.4.7 Summary 19
5. Research Design 20
5.1 Data collection and data analyses methods 20
5.2 Vignettes 22
5.2.1 Lucas 22
5.2.2 Isa 24
5.2.3 Noah 24
5.3 Concept Operationalization 26
5.4 Validity and reliability 30
6. Results 32
6.1 Introduction 32
6.2 Subquestions 33
6.2.1 subquestion 1: preferred actions 33
6.2.2 subquestion 2: perceived responsibilities 37 6.2.3 subquestion 3: effect of perceived responsibilities 38 6.2.4 subquestion 4: influence of community and culture 40
6.2.5 subquestion 5: influence of gender 41
7. Conclusions 42 7.1 Introduction 42 7.2 Conclusion 42 7.3 Discussion 45 7.4 Limitations 49 7.5 Recommendations 50 8. Attachments 51
8.1 Interview topics and example questions 51
8.2 Vignettes 53
8.3 References 56
4. Introduction
4.1 Introduction
When massive floods broke the dams in the Netherlands in 1953, thousands of people worked to help and support the affected regions. Individuals from unaffected regions went into the flooded area with small boats to rescue fellow citizens, shelters were set up, and amateur radio operators went into the flooded regions as well to set up a voluntary emergency radio service.
All these actions were set up without any governmental oversight, often even before the
government was completely aware of the severity of the situation (Rollema, 2004). The actions of those participating civilians greatly influenced the outcome of the crisis. The research of Helsloot and Ruitenberg (2004) shows that this is also the case within other crises. The field of crisis management, however, has not focused on the acts and experiences of individual participating civilians. Most researchers focus on the role of the government or (voluntary) organized civilian groups such as the Red Cross and their effects on a crisis. This master thesis will address the lack of knowledge about the perception and feelings of responsibility of individual participating civilians when confronted with a crisis, particularly adolescents.
Before an explanation of why it is important to research this gap, and why this gap exists, it is important to look at the definition and implications of a crisis. In general we can state that a crisis is “A serious threat to the basic structures or fundamental values and norms of a social system, which, under the conditions of time-pressure and very uncertain circumstances, demands critical decision making” (Kuipers, 2016). A crisis stretches or goes over the immediate capacity of emergency services. Local hospitals and fire department are equipped to deal with situations up to a certain scale, for larger crises like the fireworks explosion in Enschede in 2000 (de vuurwerkramp) the emergency capacity of all hospitals in a range of 100 kilometers was needed. Even German emergency services assisted during the crisis. Other examples of crises are terrorist attacks, floodings, earthquakes or a cyber-attack shutting down critical infrastructure.
In the examples mentioned above you can already see that there is a role for civilian participation in solving these crises. The next chapters will discuss the relevance of the subject in academic research and society, why this has not been researched yet, what has been researched within this domain already, and how this master thesis will address the current gap.
4.2 Academic and Societal relevance
Crisis and crisis response is a subject that has always been important, but it has become even more prominent in the current interconnected world. If a disaster strikes anywhere, everyone will know after it happening, and usually the knowledge that something went wrong will be available within minutes after the event. Similarly the consequences of those disasters are felt around the globe immediately. Whether the consequences are economic, societal or just in the minds of people, a crisis now has an immediate effect. Beunders (Crisis Gecommuniceerd, 2003) describes this as an 'emotion culture', the immediate and often emotional response to anything happening in the world, and it has had a profound effect on society in the past three decades.
But with every crisis there is also an immediate positive response from around the world. After the Manchester bombing on the 22nd of May this year (2017) more than 2.3 million pounds was collected in a week for the victims, without any governmental support needed1. But there are also people who act when the crisis is still ongoing. These participating civilians help in a variety of ways. From aiding injured to transforming their homes into safe havens, everywhere people are acting to help others. People acting like this have existed for as long as there have been
communities. For centuries, local villages were dependent on their own community because fast communication with larger settlements or any kind of authority was impossible. A particularly willing government might be able to send the army, which would arrive days after the actual crisis happened, and by then, there was not much left for actual crisis management (Tonnaer, 2008). It is important to study how and why this happens, because while government response time has improved vastly from the days it took in the past, it is still the case that in the first hour of a crisis there is no one else to help the people in need and solve the crisis (Helsloot & Ruitenberg, 2004). Furthermore, even if there is a government, civilians still participate, sometimes even against the wishes of the government as research of the IFV in 2011 points out. Examples of these kinds of support can be found everywhere. After the attack on the Twin Towers September 11th 2001, thousands of surrounding civilians helped. After the devastating earthquakes in Mexico in 1985 it was estimated that about 10% of the country's population helped in the direct relieve effort, from clearing rubble, rescuing and treating people to building shelters. Closer to home, after the fireworks explosion in Enschede or the fire in the café in Volendam there were large amounts of civilians helping the emergency services (IFV, 2011).
However, research on how civilians perceive the government and crisis management mostly focus on the governmental side of crises: communication from the government prior or after a crisis (Crisis Gecommuniceerd, 2003), management of what civilians can expect (Naphegyi & Van 't Padje, 2006) or governmental projects to improve strategies and tactics of governmental forces (Sievers, 2012; Starmans & Oberije, 2006).
In all these cases, however, there is no attention for the civilian and his or her story. They are often regarded as an anonymous mob which needs to be controlled. An example of this is the research of Mileti & Peer (2000), or the still prevalent myths about civilians panicking during a crisis. This focus on steering and controlling is changing. The last decade has seen an increase in attention towards civilians who contribute positively during crises again. Examples are the research of the IVF (2010), Jongevos (2006) or Sievers (2009). This research follows the trend of letting civilians participate in solving a crisis which happens close to home.
At the moment, it is unclear if the emergency services themselves want to implement strategies that 1 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/25/manchester-bombing-appeals-victims-families-justgiving
make more use of participating civilians. The advantages and disadvantages are being discussed at various levels of government on if, how and when cooperation should be managed (Helsloot & Ruitenberg, 2004). It is, however, also useful to look to the other side: what are factors that
influence why and how civilians want to participate in a crisis situation? How do they see their own actions?
More knowledge of civilian intentions could improve the efforts made to better incorporate civilian activities. With regards to incorporating civilian activities in crisis situations, the Netherlands is lagging behind countries like the USA and the UK. In the USA for example exists an official CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams) program for interested civilians, this program is also incorporated in the regional crisis management governmental office.2
This research will thus add to the academic discipline of crisis management. It can help support organizations that deal with citizens during a crisis. Examples are mayors or security regions who need to organize the strategic response to a crisis. Having a better understanding of motivations can therefore prevent situations in which the combined actions of individual citizens are not addressed, while they have a huge impact on how the crisis is resolved. A different group for whom this
research is interesting are those emergency responders who are the first 'officials' on the scene of the crisis. Research from Oberijé & Tonnaer (2008) has shown that Dutch emergency responders are positive towards participation in general, but have no concrete preparation or training and often don't incorporate those civilians in their own response to the crisis. Combining and incorporating might be a better approach to resolve a crisis, and there are some experiments in this direction being done on various levels. A next step towards this is understanding the other party involved.
Adolescents play a particularly interesting group in this respect, and they are the focus of this master thesis. The term adolescents might be misleading, as it is a very wide category of people. There is no clear definition, both in general use and in scientific discussions the age category 'adolescents' can mean anything from 12-21, 14-18, 11-19 or something else in this general age range. For the purposes of this research the age of 16 to 20 has been chosen, this could more accurately be described as late adolescents, but for the sake of brevity they will be referred to as adolescents in this research.
The new emotion culture (Crisis gecommuniceerd, 2003) and the interconnectedness are core parts of the world in which the current generation of adolescents (Age 16-20) have grown up. These digital natives do not know a world other than one in which everyone is connected, unlike the older generations who did not grow up with the internet. Digital communication has made sure we see how much they are like us, and this similarity makes us more empathic to them (Cialdini, 2009). In the generational theory of Strauss and Howe (1997; 2000; 2007) this generation, who were born between 1982 and 2004, are regarded as more civic-minded and having more social consciousness. This generation might be even more willing to take responsibility during a crisis than older
generations, which only amplifies the problem that there is no protocol or plan that incorporates them. The oldest of this group of adolescents were 3 or 4 years when the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers happened, and they have not experienced a world with the threat of open war, only the threat of terrorism. Crisis relief and how to act during emergencies was a significant part of public life during the Cold War. That has changed however, with the attention shifted to terrorism. If the change in paradigm towards more responsibility for civilians is also continuing in crisis
management, this generation will be the one which will be the most affected in the coming years. They are also the age group which is both adult and still the most malleable with regards to a new way in which crisis management is addressed.
4.3 Problem outline
We don't know enough about how people respond when disaster happens nearby. We know they act predominantly rational (Helsloot & Ruitenberg, 2004), and we know many will stay and help to participate in resolving the crisis. From the research of the IFV (2010) we find that those
interviewed so far have been those with professional experience (military or medical), but this sample is not representative. So there is still more information to be gained. This research also had no people under the age of 25, which makes it even more interesting to look at this group.
The factors mentioned above combined lead to the following question:
How do adolescents perceive crises and the responsibility for solving crises?
In order to know how they perceive crises as defined by Kuipers (2016) we can look at various aspects, some of which have already been researched partially. An important part is how the adolescents would respond if an actual crisis were to happen in front of them. Would they then feel and take responsibility or wait for the government? As we know from Van Duykeren (2014) and Helsloot & Ruitenberg (2004), people react rationally in a crisis situation. The question is what a rational response would entail for this group.
Subquestions
Below is a list of subquestions which will be used to answer the main research question. Each question is preceded by an explanation of how the question is related to the main question and its connection to the literature.
The actual behaviour of respondents during a crisis might be the best indication of how they perceive a crisis. Will respondents take any responsibility? Will they think about calling the emergency services? These actions, and the reasons for the actions, are important factors in determining how adolescents perceive a crisis. The following subquestion will be used to answer this question:
1. What are the actions adolescents would prefer to take when confronted with a crisis? A crisis is an uncommon occurrence, but it is now easier than ever to be informed about crises and the chances of them happening, either in general or in the neighborhood of the respondents
themselves.
2. How do adolescents perceive crises and the effects of crises?
The role of the government in crisis management is large currently. How do respondents perceive the government in general? And particulary in a crisis situation? Do they for example trust the government to act in their and other civilians' best interest?
3. How do adolescents perceive the responsibilities of both government and themselves in a crisis situation?
Behaviour is also influenced by the community surrounding a person. The culture, and for instance parents, can influence the perception of if one should help other people (Andolina, 2009; Alesina & Guiliano, 2011). An extreme example is amoral familism, which causes people to distrust those outside the family, and consequently also think those outside distrust them. We can also look at the effects of voluntary work, religion and political involvement, research from Lewis (2003) and the
SVMP (1993) has shown that these factors influence the amount of civic engagement one has, and this could possibly influence the decision making of helping others.
4. What is the influence of community and culture in response to a crisis?
Earlier research of the IFV (2010) has shown that women tended to focus on helping the wounded, while men were focusing on search and rescue. There could be multiple reasons for this, such as cultural pressure or a difference in training, as 80-90% of the nurses in the Netherlands are female (CBS, 2016b). But these differences might not exist in our current population.
4.4 Literature review
This literature review will discuss the research on perception and responsibilities of crises, now and in the past, of both the common society and the various governments in the past decades. Other subjects that will be examined are risk perception in general and what has changed in the past few years with the new rise of feelings of uncertainty. The generation of current adolescents has not known another world than this interconnected one, and this subject will also be discussed briefly again. Before the history of the role of civilians in crisis management will be discussed, it is
important to look at what exactly is a participating civilian. Helsloot (2010) describes the behaviour of a participating civilians as follows: “ Behaviour in a crisis aimed at saving oneself and others in the crisis.” (Helsloot, 2010, p16)
4.4.1 History of crisis management
Civilians have been acting as the first responders to crises since the beginning of civilization. Tonnaer (2008) notes that a 'participatory government' might be a better term than that of
'participating civilians', as prior to the 20th century a professional response to a crisis only involved the army, which took a few days to arrive and could at most help with clearing rubble. Civilians were on their own and acted as such.
After the second World War, a new law and organization was started in the Netherlands:
Bescherming Bevolking. This organized civilian activity during a crisis. It was initially aimed at instructing and organizing civilians in the context of the Cold War and a possible WMD-attack, but it was also used to let civilians organize themselves in other potential crisis situations. This
organization was never fully utilized, as the law Bescherming Burgers was abolished in 1986, which also shut down the Bescherming Burgers organization. This was done for two reasons, the first being that the Cold War was thought to be running on its end ,rendering the organization obsolete. Secondly, the government wanted more professional control during crisis management. An organization made up of civilians did not fit in this image (Hooiveld, 2008).
In this light the background of the common misconceptions of civilian behaviour during a crisis are important to address. Helsloot and Ruitenberg (2004) have found three common myths which are still propagated by modern media through for instance books and movies. The first myth is that civilians panic during a crisis. Panic is defined by Helsloot and Ruitenberg as a response which is irrational and contagious; the irrational behaviour is affecting others in the vicinity, which also makes them act irrationally. This so-called “contagion theory” is also discussed by Van Duykeren (2014) among other theories of how crowds act when a disaster happens. In various forms they all describe a loss of rational thinking happening during such events. While these have shaped the governmental and societal response towards civilian behaviour in a crisis for a long time, they do not mirror reality. The response of civilians to a crisis is not panic but rather rational given the circumstances. A good example of this in practice was during the terrorist attack of September 9th 2001. The firemen were surprised about the discipline with which people left the towers (Dwyer & Flynn, 2005).
The second myth is that of looting for profit during a crisis, which was for instance reported by media after the flooding of New Orleans by Katrina. There is no evidence of large scale looting in Western society after crises. Most people behave rationally and still comply with the common cultural rules. However, an important distinction must be made between looting for profit and looting to survive. The former is almost non-existent and the focus of the myth. The latter does happen in some cases, but is also very dependent on the crisis and not at the scale presented by the media.
The last myth is that people are helpless and dependent on professionals for guidance, and is the most important one in the context of this master thesis. For instance Helsloot and Ruitenberg (2004) and Tonnaer (2008) have shown that civilians try to take an active part in solving crises.
An important concept in this case is the so-called golden hour. In the first hour after a major disaster civilians do the most effort in combating the crisis, while the professional emergency services are starting up their crisis mode. Not only must the necessary personnel and resources be collected, enough information needs to be gathered to establish the complete scope of the crisis. In this golden hour the majority of the people are rescued, largely by civilians. The amount of ordinary citizens helping at this time also often far outranks the amount of professional emergency services that are active (Oberijé & Tonnaer, 2008).
Security utopia paradigm in the Netherlands
If there exists a willingness to act in civilians and the government seems unable to deal with all crises, the logical conclusion is that the government should use the support of those citizens. This was, however, not what happened. After the shutdown of the BB in 1986 various options were and are implemented to work towards the 'utopia of a secure world' (Helsloot, 2010).
An example of these efforts are new mass surveillance laws. Minister Plasterk said in 2015 in an interview “We need to expand [mass surveillance]. The recent threat in the Thalys showed us that. The first question is: Do we have the threat visible? And the new law offers opportunities to do something about that.” (translated from original Dutch interview). Mass surveillance, both off- and online, are expanding and have been expanding tremendously since 2001, with the main
justification being the prevention of a new (man-made) crisis.
This utopian belief of a government able to provide a secure world is no longer a unified
governmental position. There have been several government campaigns to improve preparedness for a crisis: 'Denk Vooruit' (Think Ahead) and 'Goed voorbereid zijn heb je zelf in de hand' (being prepared properly is in your own hands) are the two campaigns started by minister Ter Horst, to try and increase the proper behaviour by civilians before and during a crisis. In the letter of Minister Ter Horst from June 4th 2009 she stated several concrete actions to enhance independence and to move responsibility partially towards civilians themselves instead of relying on the government. This is also apparent in a statement from prime minister Balkenende in 2004: “The government will no longer care for people from cradle to grave” (Volkrant, May 17th 2004). Some of those
protections have been cut away because of a lack of budget. Their replacement should come through community services or a 'participation society' as was stated by the Dutch king in the same year. In more and more areas, the government relies of individual citizens to perform the tasks formerly done by professionals.
4.4.2 Cooperation with Civilians
The trend of cooperation with civilians is also shown in crisis management in recent years as more and more studies are done to see how civilians can cooperate with emergency services. These researches have focused mainly on the role and perspective of governmental (emergency) organizations.
Sievers (2009) found examples in Itteren and Borgharen in the Netherlands. These two villages are completely closed off from the mainland during a flooding. As the villages are relatively small, they do not have quick access to police, fire department and medicine needed if something would happen during such a flooding. The regional governments decided instead of investing in professional
services in the villages, that local authorities should cooperate with civilians to prepare emergency plans using the civilian capacity. The villages are now capable of fending for themselves for a large period of time in case of an emergency without need of professional crisis services.
Gloucestershire is another example of Sievers, where the local government was surprised after a disaster with the amount of people offering to help. Because they had no centralized idea of the skills and resources available versus the need, these civilian sources were ultimately not used. This has now been amended by the local government through various systems, but this improvement seems to be an exception in the Western world.
Oberijé and Starmans (2006) note the need for more civilian participation and also see this as an increasingly important theme. They looked at how civilian participation is perceivedand welcomed by professionals and how it can be stimulated. They note that in studies of especially natural
disaster about 60-90 percent of the people were saved by other civilians or by themselves instead of relying on professional services, which is in line with the other research of Helsloot and Ruitenberg (2004) which also said civilians are not dependent and helpless.
They note a lack of knowledge about who the participating civilians are; it is unclear what the personal or situational circumstances are that drive someone to help. Oberije and Starmans also found that professional services are not adjusted to the actions of individual participating civilians. Sometimes the initiatives are given the space to act, but it also often happens they are ignored or asked to stop their activities. The negative consequences of civilian participation are also
mentioned; they can become a victim themselves or damage efforts of professional services. Another aspect is an overload of help, this costs significant manpower to manage which cannot be targeted at solving the actual crisis. Their conclusions are that participation of civilians has become more accepted, but that planning and preparing for it is still not done by governmental (emergency) organizations.
Oberije and Tonnaer (2008) conducted a survey and interviews under government professionals working during crises. These professionals are generally positive about cooperation with civilians, and the professionals who have experienced participating civilians during real incidents and crises are generally more positive than those who have not. Most of their respondents expected
participating civilians, but this effort was seldom steered or organized by the emergency organizations. They also found almost no official preparations for incorporating participating civilians.
Helsloot and Van 't Padje (2010) have researched more in-depth how participating civilians might take responsibility after a crisis. Their research has been difficult for various reasons. Both Starmans & Oberijé (2006) and Helsloot & Van 't Padje (2010) mention these problems and have found the following explanations. There has been almost no prior research into the why and how of the actions of participating civilians. It is often unclear who actually helped, as there is no time to collect information during the crisis. Alternatively, these people have not even been in contact with government employees, thus remaining completely anonymous. Of those who have been located afterwards, many do not return questionnaires about the experience and/or refuse to participate in interviews. Of those of who do participate the reasoning of why they helped is often unclear, nor is there information about a general psychological personality which is more (or less) likely to help. In 2010 the IFV published a report with the results of interviews of civilians and emergency service personnel on participating civilians. They interviewed 75 people on how they participated and what worked and did not work. The researchers found out that all the participants had some medical or military experience. They also found no participants below the age of 25, with the average
participant around 40. This is important for the main research question, as adolescents are for some reason not part of the participants of the IFV research. It is highly unlikely that there are no
participating civilians of this age, but there is no known research about this subject. Men were more inclined to work in relief efforts such as search and rescue, while the women were more prevalent in medical aid. While the results were not representative, it is still an interesting result. They noticed that the cooperation between emergency services and participating civilians in general went fine, although in significant part of the cases the civilians were ignored or not incorporated in the activities of the professional emergency services.
The role of men and women in general society has shifted over the past century, with World War One and Two causing women to get massively incorporated in the working environment, and subsequently gaining more and more equal rights to men in the west(Glazer & Slater, 1987). Still, differences remain and crisis management research seems to suggest there is still a difference here. Differences are also found in risk perception, which will be discussed below. The causes are still uncertain, however, and they could be biological, societal or a combination of both.
A research of the IFV in 2011 compiled the activities of various activities participating civilians have engaged in during ten large crises dating from 1992 to 2010. The reported support civilians have given was wide-ranging, from assisting in medical situation, building dams to protect against a flooding, to transportation of emergency personnel. In almost every aspect commonly executed by emergency professionals, some evidence could be found of those activities being done or assisted by civilians in some capacity. This research does not show for the majority why these civilians helped or what their background was. In some cases Helsloot and Van 't Padje (2010) researched the actions of civilians who rescue themselves and others. They make a distinction between different kinds of behaviour during a crisis. Helping themselves, helping others, or those actions who have the aim to control the consequences of the crisis all fall under the definition of a participating civilian. Furthermore, preparing for an eventual crisis is also part of their definition of the behaviour of a participating civilian.
Their research focused on the various actions done by participating civilians, not only during several crises but also in the context of social security and in long-term research by the police on certain crimes. The response of the security and/or emergency professionals on those actions is also discussed. They conclude that participating civilians are now regarded more positively than in the past, and that they are more and more seen as a viable solution. There are still many problems with the concept however, as some still regard more responsibility for participating civilians as a threat, and others see this shift as mainly a way to reduce costs of security instead of actually increasing security.
We do not know how civilians regard their own responsibility. The results of the research so far show that there is at least some enthusiasm to help, and this new generation might even be more inclined to do so (Strauss & Howe, 2007), but this has not been confirmed yet.
The dangers of civilian cooperation are also explored in the research of Helsloot and Van 't Padje (2010). The first is that of the potential legal problems. If a professional tasks the civilian with something and it causes harm or the death of a person, who is then responsible for the
consequences? Currently, emergency services will not be sued, and civilians are protected because they are not expected to be capable of working professionally and are protected by the so called good Samaritan laws. However, this may change in the future. A second problem is if something happens to the participating civilian himself. At the moment the insurance companies have no problem paying for the damages incurred, because it is a net positive if people help each other. But
this again might change in future, and the government might be held responsible. 4.4.3 Risk communication and perception
Risk perception is inherently subjective, even though risks in some cases can be objectively established. Two different persons can regard the same data with a different outcome. This vision can be influenced by many factors, some of which we will note here because they are applicable to the research population. This also influences government communication about these risks; this communication needs to be adapted to the target group.
Jongevos (2006) focused on the communication of risks of crises and how civilians perceived this. He noted a low motivation to search for information what to do during a crisis by the civilians themselves. The research made an effort to distinguish between two groups, those that are active within a community and a general control group which represents the Dutch civilian on average. A difference has been found between these two groups. People that are active in the community trust their own capacities more and this group also finds it generally more important to prepare for an eventual disaster than the control group. In general, however, the respondents estimated the chance that they would encounter a crisis as very low. This is also corroborated by Caponecchia (2012) who specifically focused on the risk perception of terror incidents. He found that in general people did not expect to witness a (terrorist) crisis. In psychology this is called an 'optimism bias': negative events are estimated as being less likely to happen to someone regardless of the actual chance (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). Communicating risks in order to increase preparedness is therefore regarded as not being as effective as it logically should be (Capponecchia, 2012). This has been seen in practice in the Netherlands as well. There have been several communication campaigns in order to increase preparation and awareness of crises that have not had the intended effect of increasing the perception of possible disasters and crises (Newton, 2010).
In general Newton (2010) found that risks are best communicated by the government through a personally engaging approach which should be focused on the current emotions of the population. Van 't Padje en Naphegyi (2012) found in interviews with civilians from Utrecht that they only want information about risks if it is both practical and relevant to the person. Because most crises are low-chance-high-risk events, communicating these risks and what they potentially could do about it is largely seen as obsolete by the respondents. As is also seen in the research of Newton (2010), preparing for these risks is not seen as being worth the effort. Conversely, if a region is regularly hit by disasters an apathetic response can become common. This has been recorded in the storm-struck regions of the USA, where the population has been hit so many times by storms and survived that they no longer regard it as actually being dangerous, which is of course even more dangerous (Jongevos, 2006).
Franken (2012) found that risk perception does not develop uniformly and differs between men and women. Men are more prone to underestimate risks than women, and women's risk perception is more focused on the feeling of vulnerability, while men's risk perception is correlated to the degree of potential injury. But both increase their perception of risks as they get older. This perception takes the shape of a U-curve in the adolescent period of 16-20 years, meaning they are more likely to engage in risky behaviour in this period. After this period, risk perception increases steadily throughout adult life, although an optimism bias still remains.
Perception of risks is important in two ways with regards to crises. The first is of course in the preparatory phase. The research above shows that adolescents, with their generally lowered risk
perception, can be expected to prepare even less than the average person who hardly takes the time to prepare. A second part is during the crisis itself. An adolescent could be more prone to taking risks in order to for instance save someone else, especially in men who have even lower risk perception, but this could very well also not be the case.
4.4.4 Taking responsibility
Strauss and Howe (2007) theorized that current adolescents might be taking more responsibility in general, because they are more civic-minded. This can also inferred from the research of Cialdini (2009), who believes increased empathy can cause people to act more, because they see others are more like them. This empathy is increased in the digital age because of increased communication. It is unknown if this happens during a crisis as well. The current generation still grows up with the message of a government being 'in control' and trying very hard to remain in control. This can be seen in the response to the various crises in the last decades, where government's response is often very aggressive. But as Birkland (2009) concluded most of this response later turns out to be a 'fantasy document', of which hardly anything is implemented. The show of a government taking responsibility and being in control is perpetuated .
This message of control is countered at some points; There have been several government
campaigns to improve preparedness for a crisis: 'Denk Vooruit' (Think Ahead) and 'Goed voorbereid zijn heb je zelf in de hand' (being prepared properly is in your own hands) are the two campaigns started by minister Ter Horst, to try and increase the proper behaviour by civilians before and during a crisis. In the letter of Minister Ter Horst from june 4th 2009 she stated several concrete actions to enhance independence and to move responsibility partially towards civilians themselves, instead of relying on the government.
The Red Cross states that the amount of official first aid certificated civilians is only around 3% of the populace, which is very low in comparison to countries such as Germany or Sweden who have rates
around 70 to 80% of their population.3 In Sweden it is mandatory to get a first aid certificate if you
want to get your car license. Additionally, some parts of the country are remote enough that any professional emergency services response can easily take up an or more hour before they arrive, so knowing first aid is vital to survive in these areas. These areas are very rare in the Netherlands, with an average maximum response time for emergency services of about 15 minutes4. It is interesting to see how the adolescents perceive these kinds of risks; do they rely on the government because they know the government will respond quickly?
4.4.5 Decision making
Decision making is one of the most important aspects, as the focus in this master thesis is on what the population prefers to do. This research will look at various models of decision making,
specifically those in a crisis. The circumstances of decision making in a crisis can be described by 3 factors: uncertain circumstances (either overload or lack of information), time pressure and critical decision making (Kuipers, 2016). Even under these circumstances, Helsloot and Ruitenberg (2004) found that the majority of the decisions made by civilians were rational, panic plays only a minor role.
Most researchers use theories of rationality, where a rational actor makes decision based on the costs and benefits of every option available. In a crisis situation, however, there often is no time to look at every option in detail as there is a considerate time-pressure and the risks/rewards of various options are unclear. Most research under these circumstances has been focused on operational 3 https://nieuws.nl/algemeen/20140911/aantal-ehbo-gecertificeerden-in-nederland-te-laag
decision makers (see for instance De Jong, 2014) who have had extensive training and expertise in crisis moments, as well as clear descriptions of their tasks and expectations. The expectation is that the target group does not have any of this experience with sudden crisis situations.
The bystander effect theory, originally proposed by Darley and Latané (1968) explains the process people go through before they can respond to a crisis situation and factors that can influence this process, mainly focusing on other people present. This theory has later been revised and improved several times by various other researchers. One of the most recent versions which combines the results in a meta-analysis is of Fisher et al (2011). The cognitive steps followed in a crisis situation proposed by Fisher et al are roughly as follows:
1. Noticing the incident
2. Understanding the incident as an unsafe situation 3. Feeling responsibility for the incident and the effects 4. Can decide which action would be the best option 5. Has the capacity to act
Darley and Latané (1968) found that if other people (bystanders) were present, an individual was less likely to intervene to address a potential risk. This situation could be for instance smoke coming from under a door, or seeing someone lying in the street. If there are more people present, an individual feels less responsible to take action himself. Fisher et al. (2010) refined this in their meta-analysis. While it was generally true that people reacted either slower or not at all if others were present, there were also factors that moderated the bystander-effect. If the threat is abundantly clear, the bystander-effect is almost negligible and people respond just as quickly with or without others present. Other influences diminishing the bystander-effect are if a clear perpetrator is present or if the required involvement of the person is a physical action (e.g. helping someone get up) instead of a non-physical action.
Decision Making theories
There are several theories about how decisions are being made. As Helsloot and Ruitenberg (2004) have stated, the decision making process of civilians during a crisis is in the majority of the cases a rational process. In order to accurately describe this process, three prominent theories in rational decision will be described: Rational Choice theory, Naturalistic Decision-Making and the Image theory. .All three offer an explanation of how people come to decisions using rational processes. NDM and Rational Choice complement each other in some ways, while Image theory is a 'second generation' decision theory, build upon Rational Choice theory. It is important to note that this master thesis focuses on why the decisions are made by the participants and not exactly on how they make those decisions, but in the context of decision making it is important to note that there is no scientific consensus on how exactly decisions are made, because this can potentially influence the decision itself.
Rational choice theory
Rational choice theory is the most well-known theory when people think about how decisions are being made (Darwall, 1998). Each individual person (an agent) makes a decision according to his or her own preferences. The agent takes into account the available information, probabilities of events, and the potential costs and benefit of each option. These options are then simultaneously weighted against each other in order to pick the one with the maximum amount of profit. This information combined leads to the best decision possible for the agent.
limited, so while an option in theory might be better, the agent might not have the information leading to preferring that option. Secondly, the agent has bounded rationality. This means that weighing options against each other costs time and (mental) effort, and one or both may be lacking, certainly in a crisis situation. This is how some people get trapped in bathrooms during fires, thinking it is a safe space, and later being unable to exit the room due to the fire outside. Naturalistic Decision-Making Process
The Naturalistic decision-making process (NDM) is developed by Klein (1999). NDM portrays decision-making under stressful conditions, unclear information and ill-defined goals. A crisis fits into this description. NDM has several elements comparable to the rational choice theory, but much of NDM follows the Recognition-Primed model (RP). A vital part of NDM is the fact that a
decision maker has enough experience with the kind of situations he encounters. If this experience is lacking, he is not able to effectively make the mental models needed to quickly decide on a course of action. The adolescents interviewed in this research are not expected to have this kind of experience, so the model will only be described briefly and in comparison to the Rational Choice theory.
Where rational choice puts several options side to side, NDM uses one mental model from which flows one logical solution. Decision makers alter this mental model on the basis of new cues which they recognize from former situations. Having experience with comparable situation is vital in order to quickly recognize important cues and patterns. If anything changes in the situation, the mental model is adapted and a new solution made. Rational choice theory then demands of the agent to re-evaluate all his options to see which one should be preferred.
Image theory
Image theory, originally described by Beach & Mitchell (1987). Instead of focusing purely on rational reasoning, or relying on experience to know what the right decision is, Image theory has three categories that influence a decision: value images, trajectory images and strategic images. These images are different kinds of ideas a person has. Value images are the most important of these. They are the values, ethics and morals which are self-evident to the person. They describe how things should be and how people ought to behave (Beach & Connoly, 2005).
The other two image categories are the trajectory image and the strategic image. The trajectory image describes the agenda and goals that the decision-maker wants to achieve. These are inspired by the principles, but the trajectory image is specifically focused on how the future should look. The last category is the strategic image. This describes both the collection of strategic concrete behaviours that are planned, and the forecast of how successful those plans will be. This strategy represents how the decision maker sees his goals and how he wants to achieve them.
If a decision has to be made, every option will be compared to the principles (value images) of the decision-maker, those that do not survive this compatibility test will be discarded. If there are multiple options left, they will be put to the probability test. Where compatibility checks to see if it adheres to the minimum boundaries (for example: must not hurt the environment), the profitability test looks at which option has the maximum profit given the boundaries and the goals of the
decision-maker. After the profitability test, the maximum profit option is chosen. This does not have to be the choice with the most rational answer, as the constraints mentioned in the rational choice theory apply, but also the new constraints of the trajectory and value images. De Jongh, (2014) found that the expert decision-makers during crises used only parts of a specific image when it was applicable, and not their whole image during every decision.
4.4.6 Adolescents in the Context of their Community
The current group of adolescents is different because they are more interconnected than their predecessors. Following the generational theory of Strauss and Howe (1997; 2000; 2007) this generation is regarded as more civic-minded and having more social consciousness. But they are not isolated from the previous generations or the people around them. The context in which someone grows up can have a huge impact on the actions of a person.
Whitley (2015) researched the effect of different types of education on undergraduates/bachelor-level students in increasing their civic engagement. The definition used for civic engagement is of Adler and Goggin (2005). Civic engagement ‘describes how an active citizen participates in the life of a community in order to improve conditions for others or help to shape the community’s future’ (Adler and Goggin, 2005). This is very close to the definition of a participating civilian, in that the focus is largely on others and on the community. The difference with this research lies in that it is focused on relieving the community from a specific crisis. Whitley (2015) finds that schools can influence civic engagement the most by forcing students to spend extra time outside of school (extracurricular) on civic engagement activities. Whitley finds that an increase in civic engagement improves the amount adolescents are engaging in a community and with political decision making, both in the short and long term. Could this relation also exist with participation in crisis
management? An interesting hypothesis might be that an increase in civic engagement might lead to feeling more responsibility, and thus more participation during a crisis as well. Vice versa a low civic engagement could lead to less participation. There is no research on this subject now. Additionally, Lewis et al (2012, 2013) also suggest that religion is positively related to civic engagement and informal helping attitudes and behaviours. Lewis et al provide multiple explanations for this. Religion provides for an extended social network for one, this network increases the chances of meeting a person or organization who needs or asks for help. Secondly, it provides a moral framework for decision which favours being active both in a community and for others who need help.
Alesina and Giuliano (2011) found that individuals who rely fully on the family for all needs are less likely to be engaged in civic or political activities. This is defined as 'amoral familism', a “social equilibrium in which people exclusively trust (and care about) their immediate family, expect everybody else to behave in that way and therefore (rationally) do not trust non-family members and do not expect to be trusted outside the family.” Lower family ties however mean more generalized trust (for instance in institutions, society etc.). Higher generalized trust is correlated with increase civic engagement. What this means for participating in a crisis is difficult to imagine. On the one hand one could argue that a culture of distrust of government would mean that they are more likely to participate themselves, because they do not trust others to do so. On the other hand, a complete distrust of anyone outside the family might mean they are unwilling or less likely to help someone not directly related to themselves.
One can thus argue that helping family seems like a potentially good reason to help in a crisis, Helsloot & Van 't Padje (2010) note, however, that during the fireworks disaster in Enschede the majority of those that participated in helping combat the crisis had no relation (e.g. familiy, friends) to those in the affected area. They observed this trend in other disasters as well (for example the Turkish Airline crash).
Andolina (2003) states that parents are one of the greatest influencers on civic behaviour of their children. Parents that talk about politics, are volunteers and are actively teaching their children that they should pay attention to the world, and more importantly, that they can influence the world
themselves. Parents and direct family form a big part of the community of most adolescents while growing up. If parents set the example for civic behaviour, they might likewise influence potential participation behaviour of adolescents.
Related to this civic behaviour is the trust in other institutions. Research from the CBS (2016) shows that general trust in institutions is rather high. The research split the governmental
institutions into various levels, broadly the local, regional and national level. The trust is inversely related to how close a government is to a person, so local governments are the most trusted and national governments the least. Compared to other age categories, adolescents are generally more trusting in public institutions in general, but they still follow the same trend.
4.4.7 Summary
At the moment it is unclear how adolescents perceive crises and if they take responsibility for participating in solving the crisis if they encounter one. This is an important factor in the current shift towards more responsibility for civilians and the experiments that are currently under way to see how this can be implemented in practice. Current literature seems to support that people in general make rational decisions when confronted with a crisis, but there are several competing theories for how this decision is being made. In this context, there are several factors that might influence the decision if and how an adolescent participates in crisis relief. The actions and
perception of the government might play a role, as does culture and community in which someone grows up. The actions of the current generation of adolescents themselves might be different than usual, because they have less risk perception but it is theorized that they have a higher feeling of responsibility. There might also be a difference in the way in which they participate, where it is expected from research that men will be more inclined to do search and rescue, and women are more inclined to help with the injured.
5. Research Design
5.1 Data collection and data analyses methods
This research will use a qualitative method, using two different methods of gathering data. The research will be a cross-sectional cohort study. All those who are between the age of 16 and 20 in the Netherlands are part of the study population (Saunders et al. 2006).
Data collection
The two methods used to gather data are in person semi-structured interviews and vignettes. The semi-structured interviews have a topic list and some example questions per topic (see attachment 8.1 for how these are formulated). Semi-structured interviews allow for more in-depth data gathering, specifically in comparison to structured interviews or surveys do they allow for more interaction and a focus on the story of the respondent. If a respondent has additional information or wants to go more in depth in specific topics, the semi-structured format allows for gathering of this information. With surveys (or structured interviews) this is often difficult if not impossible.
The method of data collection fits the research topic because this master thesis is about the
perception and responsibility of adolescents in a topic in which it is not expected they have a lot of experience, so it might be difficult for respondents to exactly envision what the subject is about. An interviewer can immediately give additional information and clear up any confusion about the subject if this is necessary. Disadvantages are that in person interviews are generally
time-consuming for both parties. There is also a chance that an interviewer bias influences the answers of the respondents. As perception of events plays a big part in this research, the manner of
interviewing and the exact words used can greatly influence the response of those interviewed. Care has to be taken that questions are asked in a neutral way. Adhering to a minimal structure, like the order of the topics discussed, can also mitigate some of these effects (Saunders et al. 2006). Vignettes will also be used in these interviews. Because of the potentially sensitive topic of this research it is important to be able to maintain an emotional distance but still be able to discuss motivations. The narrative of a vignette where you follow and predict the actions of someone else allow this (Finch, 1987) and mitigates some of the problems with socially desirable answers. People feel pressured to answer according to what is socially desirable instead of what they actually think or would do in real life. This bias is difficult to circumvent in any test environment. This bias also rules out group based data gathering methods, as this bias will be amplified by the other people present. The presence of the interviewer is in this regard a necessary evil. The potential benefit of extra information gained by being able to ask more in depth questions outweighs the threat of socially desirable answers, since the last factor is also mitigated by following the guidelines of Finch (1987) in constructing the vignettes. Vignettes allow to explore normative decisions within the context of how those decisions would be made in real life, this makes them easier to answer than in a vacuum. See chapter 5.2 for more background about how vignettes have been
implemented in this research.
Both the interview and all vignettes will be done in one session to reduce the time spent on gathering data. The physical setting of the interview is always one which is familiar to the respondent, for instance a classroom. These interviews will be done in Dutch, as it is the native language of the participants and reduces misunderstandings. These interviews will be recorded and transcribed afterwards to make them ready for open coding. The recordings will be transcribed as soon as possible to capture as much as possible of the original intent. The interviewer and
consent and agreed to being recorded for the purpose of this research on condition of anonymity. While the interview is done orally, to make the vignettes more uniform they will be distributed on paper and the respondent will have access to only one step of one vignette at a time. Respondents then have the time to read and understand the current situation of the protagonist. They can also ask clarifying questions about the vignette at any time. The first question after a vignette is always the same, but the follow-up questions are not set in stone in order to accommodate the different
directions a respondent can take by answering them. If a situation is sufficiently explored according to the interviewer, the next step in the vignette can be started. The aims of each step of the vignettes are discussed in chapter 5.2. It is possible a respondent will give an answer which will completely change the direction of the vignette (e.g. “I go home, away from the crisis scene”). This answer should be sufficiently explored, and then the direction of the vignette should be brought back to the next step in the vignette, where the respondent follows the actions of the protagonist again. The actions should thus be acknowledged, but the respondent should always be brought back to the story by the interviewer (Finch, 1987).
Sample selection
The sample selection for the qualitative research has been done in two waves. The first wave was established in two ways. The first way was by contacting the public secondary school Valuascollege in Venlo, where the dean helped in finding students who would respond positively to the request for an interview. The second way in which respondents for the first wave were collected was through the student association Biton. Various members were asked by the interviewer to participate and through a snowball method more respondents were found. The second wave consisted of students of the trade school ROC Gilde Opleidingen Groenveld, in order to also include respondents who have had some more medical experience. This was done in order to have a representation of people with medical experience, who lacked in the first wave. This was interesting because in the research of the IFV (2011) on participating civilians, all of those who participated in that research had some kind of medical or military background. This was potentially also interesting for this research, so they were included.
All of the respondents were interviewed over the course of two months. The selection of
respondents is non-random, and the students are self-selecting. They could not be forced to take part in the interviews and vignettes, they could stop at any time and they also received no compensation for participating in this study. The secondary school participants however did take this interview during their lessons, so they could skip one lesson with no penalty.
An effort has been made to have an even amount of women and men, and to interview people from different levels of education. In the end result, 13 women and 11 men have been interviewed. On average, the interviews lasted for approximately 45 minutes. The background of the respondents was as follows:
5 from VMBO 5 from HAVO; 4 from HBO; 6 from university; 4 from trade school.
The interviews are meant to give more in-depth knowledge on the subject. With the self-selection bias inherent in this method it is very likely that some outlying opinions will be found, these can provide a deeper narrative and will of course not reflect the opinions of the study population at large. The advantage of this method is exactly in that it can find unexpected things, which would normally be drowned out in larger scale or quantitative research.
Data analysis
There are two main methods in in analyzing qualitative data, deductive and inductive. The deductive approach consists of using a predetermined theoretical framework to analyze the data which can be expanded upon by the researcher, while an inductive approach uses no predetermined theoretical framework but builds one up from the ground (Strauss et al. 1990; Kumar, 2011). This research will use a deductive approach. The coding will thus initially be based on the literature reviewed, but it will be adapted to the data that is gathered because new information may arise. The data will be coded manually by the interviewer. The semi-structured format means insight will be gained in all relevant constructs and that there is a potential for more information to be gained which can complement the existing theoretical frame. The first few interviews will be used to adapt the relevant codes, although an expansion is always possible. This means that coding of the data already begins while the data gathering is still underway, in order to reduce the time used by finding respondents. Using axial coding, the codes will be restructured and reassigned multiple times during the data gathering and analysis in order to be able to meaningfully display the gathered data and draw conclusions from it. This will also prevent bloating of the codebook. Atlas.Ti will be used to code the results from the interviews and the vignettes. The final codes are available in the codebook in attachment 8.4.
5.2 Vignettes
In general all the vignettes deal with subquestion 1: the preferred actions of the adolescent when confronted with a crisis. There are of course various settings which might change how someone responds to such a crisis; these different settings are explored in the three vignettes. Finch (1987) recommends a maximum of three different steps in one vignette, any longer means it becomes too difficult to track prior changes and decisions, and it impedes comprehension of the current situation. The first vignette (Lucas) deals with a relatively safe environment for the respondent. The second vignette (Isa), however, is one where the respondent has just come out of a dangerous situation and has the chance to go back in. The third vignette (Noah) is one of a respondent physically far away from the crisis, but who is notified the emergency services are struggling. All vignettes are inspired by situations which have happened in reality, which increases its effectivity. The vocabulary of the vignettes is kept as simple as possible to increase reading comprehension, for the same reason the segments are kept as short as possible. The names of the protagonists were chosen from the top ten list of most popular names in the Netherlands of the past few years in order to increase empathy with the protagonist.
Below, the three vignettes are translated to English and will be discussed individually more in depth.
5.2.1 Lucas Part 1
Lucas is a student at the local public college. His way home is next to the train tracks. Lucas sees a train full of passengers suddenly derail, ending on its side next to the track. After he has recovered from the shock, he sees several people trying to climb out of the train.
Part 2
Lucas decides to get closer to see if he can help. He sees several people sitting outside of the train, some with injuries. He also sees there are still people locked in the train. There are no emergency services in sight.
Part 3
After more than 10 minutes, the first police cars and ambulances arrive. They start to care for the wounded and to make the area ready to receive more emergency services. Lucas also sees more local civilians arrive who start to care for the wounded.
Background
The first part of the vignette is based on the research of Helsloot and Van 't Padje (2010) who researched the actions of civilians who rescue themselves and others. They make a distinction between different kinds of participating behaviour during a crisis; looking at helping themselves, others or those actions who have the aim to control the consequences of the crisis. The first part of the vignette focuses on subquestion 1; the preferred behaviour of adolescents while there are no or as few as possible other variables that might influence the decision.
In the second part the focus is on the difference between helping wounded and search & rescue, this refers to subquestion 5 and the findings of Helsloot & Van 't Padje (2010). This is part of
subquestion 5.
In part 3 we go into the influence of the government and emergency services, which is subquestion 4. Helsloot (201), Starmans & Oberije (2006) and others find that most emergency services do not interfere directly with the work of participating civilians. The aim is to look at how our respondents react to their presence. Secondly we look at the influence of the other people who arrive and help
and if the respondents find their actions normal. 5.5.2 Isa
part 1
Isa is in a shopping centre where she comes often and has just bought her groceries. She is now on her way to her parents. On her way out, Isa spots a fire which has started in a clothes shop. This fire spreads fast to other shops in the shopping centre. Luckily, she escapes the shopping center together with many other people. From the outside she can see many people still getting out of the shopping centre.
Part 2
Isa decides to go back inside to help more people out. After a few minutes a police car arrives at the other entrance of the shopping centre. The police officers are busy at the other entrance to help people get out.
Background
A fire is a common occurrence in crises, so it is fitting to implement it in a vignette as well. The bystander-effect theory of Fisher et al (2011) showed that people reacted slower and differently if other people were present, as is now the case. This vignette gives insight in subquestion 1, certainly if they indicate they would like to know more about the actions of the other people present.
Secondly we also look at the influence of the parents, which relates to subquestion 4. There is an appointment with the parents, which can influence the decision what and how to act. they might opt to stay but inform their parents, and we can go deeper into how their parents would respond to their own actions in several ways. For instance whether they decide to participate or not and if they participate how their parents would respond to their actions. Alesina and Guiliano (2011) showed there can be a significant deference to family, and even a distrust of those outside of it, to the point that they refuse to help those who are outside of the direct circle of trusted people. Alternatively, there could be varying degrees in what the parents expect from their children, some might expect them to help while others expect that they purely look after themselves.
In the second part we look again the presence of emergency services. Where in the first vignette the the idea is that the emergency services are in the same area and are covering the same group of victims and are in principle accessible, in this vignette the idea is invoked that they are further away physically, and are busy with another group of victims at another entrance, so the respondent has to actively choose to go there for advice or help, or opt to stay and act on their own accord. This relates to subquestion 3, and also to the research of Helsloot (2010) and IVF (2010) which states that people need to have the confidence to act on their own and know what is a good course of action. This vignette is also different because Isa is a woman. This might affect what they choose to be a likely course of action for her and if that differs from what they would do or if that differs from what they expect Lucas to do, which refers to subquestion 5.
5.5.3 Noah Part 1
Noah is at home watching TV. It has stormed outside. He is watching the news and sees that lightning has struck in several places in the city. Because of this, a nearby district where many elderly people live has partially been set aflame. When Noah looks out of the window he can indeed see the smoke of the fire. The news reports that the emergency services are having trouble to get the situation under control. The fire has not been extinguished and there are still many elderly who need to be evacuated and treated.
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