Don't panic we've all just been acting rationally

If we had believed there was enough petrol to go round, would we have spent hours queuing at the pumps? Psychologist STEPHEN REICHER says last week's 'hysteria' was nothing of the sort

ONE of the many ironies of recent days is that our reactions to the fuel crisis have served to fuel the crisis itself: the merest rumour of blockades and shortages has led to queues at the pumps and hence to real shortages.

Even at the height of the protests we are told that the traffic could have kept flowing normally had we not all rushed to fill up. Even though governments routinely blame the people when things go wrong, surely this time the facts bear out the politicians, the police and the press when they tell us that we have all lost our minds and succumbed to hysteria?

Well they don't. And the first clue to why they don't, lies in those three little words "we are told". Who tells us? If we were to believe the authorities when they say there is plenty to go round and we were still to queue up, then our behaviour really would be irrational.

However, do we believe them? If we don't trust in the official mouthpieces and we think that there really isn't enough to go round, then our behaviour begins to make more sense. If we start from the premise that fuel or bread or even toilet rolls are a limited resource, it is reasonable to get in there while stocks last.

At the heart of recent events, then, there is a fundamental problem of trust.

It has various facets, but the first is the trust we have in our politicians. It could be argued that we are facing a crisis of political representation. In an age of declining turnout, even many of those who voted three years ago feel that their voices are not heard. Also, more and more people think that the authorities do not speak for them, inclining them to listen less to what the authorities have to say. Rather, they rely upon the evidence of their own eyes, such as queues at petrol stations, and also upon informal networks of information - in other words, rumour.

Another outcome is that people begin to speak for themselves. People are doing what they have always done when they feel they cannot direct their grievances through official channels: they express themselves on the streets.

The historian EP Thompson referred to the 600-odd food disturbances that occurred in England around the start of the 19th century as "collective bargaining by riot" - and a very effective form of bargaining it is too.

Since then, what we regard as conventional politics came in, but now, as our faith in representative structures declines, we are seeing a new spate of protests.

We have also lost trust in each other.

More than any other, the word "panic" has been used to describe our recent behaviour: panic buying, panic stockpiling, panic everything, as if some overwhelming emotion overcame us despite our better judgment. But when I looked for petrol last week I didn't feel particularly emotional and I don't know anyone else who did. In fact, our behaviour is much better described as what is sometimes known as "the tragedy of the commons".

When some common resource is limited, there may well be no problem if we all take a limited share. However, if we know or believe others to be taking more than their fair share and we also fear losing out as a result, then we too are likely to take more. As everybody begins to do likewise, so the resource rapidly depletes and the tragedy occurs. That is, our own behaviour is conditioned by what we think others are doing. The irony is that if we are led to believe that everyone else is behaving irrationally, then it is perfectly rational for us to behave as they do - indeed the true irrationality would be to do anything else.

Being constantly told that everybody else is panicking is therefore highly counterproductive. It leads us to lose trust that others will behave responsibly and so leads everyone to look out for themselves. Media accounts of "panic" subvert the trust on which social organisation depends. The result is social disorganisation. Chaos.

JUST as it is a cheap shot for governments to blame the people, it is too easy for academics to blame the media for everything. It may be one factor in explaining the loss of trust, but hardly the only one. There is considerable research on how people behave under conditions of perceived threat. They don't always look after themselves and trample others in the rush. On the Titanic, most were calm and many sacrificed themselves by letting others get to the boats first. After the Hiroshima bomb, people tended to others even before they dealt with their own horrific wounds. What seems to be crucial is a sense of collective identity that leads people to see what is good for others as good for themselves and a strong sense of norms which regulate how people behave. Under such circumstances, extreme threat can lead to extreme heroism rather than extreme selfishness. Loss of trust is but a symptom of a wider fragmentation in our sense of communal responsibility.

Could it be that Margaret Thatcher's belief that "there is no such thing as society" is coming home to roost?

Blaming some inherent flaw in the human psyche - some deep-seated irrationality that we can do nothing about - for our behaviour in a crisis would not only be wrong but counterproductive. Rather, as always, the patterns of collective behaviour reveal something profound about developments in human society which we can, indeed must, do something about. The implications go far beyond a few pence on a litre of petrol. They post warnings about the very nature of our political and civil society. We ignore such warnings at our peril.

lDr Stephen Reicher, of the School of Psychology at St Andrews University, is editor of the British Journal of Social Psychology.

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