During a recent interview on Radio Verulam I talked about panic buying. As an anthropologist, I was describing how the theory of evolutionary psychology explains how irrational behaviour can grip human beings and how instinctive and emotional reactions take over. You would hope that people in this time of Coronavirus crisis would automatically pull together but instead, there are stories of brawls in supermarkets, empty shelves and crazy stockpiling - apparently, one man in Tennesse bought 17,000 bottles of hand sanitiser. Perhaps he hoped to make a killing on eBay!The evolutionary explanation for this behaviour finds its origins way back in human history,hundreds of thousands of years ago in the Old Stone Age (Palaeolithic) past when the human species were hunters and gathers. Life then we imagine was a constant struggle for survival,where predators could arbitrarily make a meal of you. Fear and anxiety were the evolutionary reactions which saved the species - was that shadow in the woods or savannah a predator to be feared or a trick of the imagination? The only sensible response was to panic and take instinctive evasive action. If it was not a predator nothing was lost but if it was a predator and you did nothing you would be taken out of the evolutionary succession - you were food, dead and could not pass on your genes! Think of how wild animals, say birds, have learnt over time to fear humans and always take evasive action when they see us coming. The Dodo had lived happily on Mauritius until the Dutch came in the 16th century and because it had no previous predators, could no longer fly and so had no escape mechanism, was hunted to extinction by the hungry sailors.Panic then is a natural, instinctive reaction to a situation when all control over your environment is lost; panic is also contagious so that in the way a flock of birds or a herd of sheep take to flight so humans can react with so-called ‘herd mentality’. So when panic buying starts the ‘herd’follows and this reaction switches from being instinctive and emotional to a rational precaution: if I don’t buy some toilet rolls now they will all be gone! However, even that ‘rational’ reaction has its origins in the competitive element of survival: you can call it selfish but evolutionary biologists, like Richard Dawkins, will tell you it is your genes competing to ensure they are the ones that will make up the next generation.The world has changed a lot for most societies since hunting and gathering days and humans,through millennia of civilisation, like to think they behave rationally: every action carefully thought out. That is we have developed science and come to be the dominant species on the globe. However, we are still animals with emotional reactions that create panic and violence,from ‘road rage’ to disastrous wars. Even in the area of finance where you would think when it comes to money our actions would be based on scientific analysis the world’s stock-markets act irrationally. Back in 2002 Daniel Kahneman won the Noble Prize for Economics. He demonstrated that much of human behaviour in the financial markets and economics generally was irrational and based on sentiment. His work has made him the godfather of Behavioural Economics.However, let’s look at the bright side. A major element also found in human behaviour, not unique to our species but developed in a way not found in other animals, is our ability to co-operate, empathise and adapt - language and communication are key to our understanding.It is not only instinctive in certain circumstances where life is threatened - ‘women and children first’ - to ensure the survival of the next generation, but it is also rational: through co-operation,we can achieve things that will ensure our own survival as well as the species. Half a million people in the UK have volunteered to help in this pandemic crisis, health workers put themselves on the line every minute of every day looking after the infected, neighbours, friends and just people who want to help are rallying around to support the weak and vulnerable in our society.In the circumstances, because of Coved-19, we find ourselves we need to ensure our rational side overcomes those emotional instinctive elements of panic. The scientists tell us the best way to stop the spread of the virus is to social distance and where necessary self-isolate.Make sure we all do it!
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