Abstract

In the early 1950s, the pioneer disaster researchers set forth what they called a series of Adisaster myths.@ They said there were six widely accepted major ideas about how human beings behaved in disaster situations, but for which they could find little or no support in their field studies. This paper describes these beliefs as that people in crises react in irrational panicky ways and behave in an antisocial manner by looting, that impacted populations are passive in the face of threats and manifest severe mental health consequences, as well as irresponsibly abandoning their role responsibilities because people can not rise to the challenges of a crisis. The paper then examines whether the very extensive research of the last 50 years raises questions about the validity of the idea of Adisaster myths@. It reports there still is solid research based data for four of the myths; people do not panic, abandon important social roles, are passive, and are unable to rise to the challenges of the extremes stress of a disaster. Looting is still very rare in typical disasters in Western type societies but the picture is unclear for other kinds of social systems; mass looting can occur in catastrophes if some other facilitating social conditions are present. The question of severe mental health consequences in disasters is hotly disputed by two competing points of view that are not easily reconcilable.