Research

Complexity in the use of 'panic' among Hillsborough survivors

Published 22 May 2013

New research from the universities of Brighton and Sussex published this week in the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, looks at popular representations of crowd behaviour in disasters which are often wrongly characterised as 'panic'.

The research was part of a larger study* which rejected the notion of 'mass panic', suggesting instead that people often come together psychologically in emergencies, and the resultant shared identity is the basis for cooperation amongst survivors.

The findings follow a BBC Panorama investigation which revealed how police, politicians, lawyers and judges all played a part in burying the truth about Britain's worst football disaster at the Hillsborough football stadium in 1989.

Dr Chris Cocking, senior lecturer in the University of Brighton's School of Nursing and Midwifery, and John Drury, senior lecturer at the University of Sussex's School of Psychology, analysed four survivors' accounts of the disaster during the FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

A crowd crush resulted in the deaths of 96 people, making it the worst stadium disaster in British history. The incident has since been blamed primarily on crowd management strategies that viewed policing football matches as a public order rather than public safety problem.

The survivors interviewed were Liverpool fans who were caught up in the crush. Researchers investigated how the survivors used the term 'panic'. While the word was used frequently, more detailed analysis showed that their accounts did not match the classic criteria for 'mass panic', i.e. uncontrolled emotion and selfish behaviour. Furthermore, participants also referred to 'orderly' behaviour, and cooperation, even when the threat of death was present.

Dr Cocking said: "Participants used 'panic' not only to describe fear and distress but also to apportion culpability towards the actions of the police who they considered responsible for the tragedy. This shows the complexity and possible inconsistencies in usage of the term.

"The term 'panic' is so deeply embedded in popular discourse that those who would reject its irrationalist implications may still use it as they are constrained by the language available to them. However, this should not be used as an excuse to apportion blame for crowd disasters upon the victims. Indeed the 2012 Hillsborough Independent Panel report (pdf) exonerates fans of any blame for the tragedy, and vindicates their 23 year quest for the truth about what really happened at Hillsborough."

"We concluded that 'panic' should not be used to describe behaviour in emergencies, as it is too loaded a term and does not accurately describe what actually happens in such situations. Alternative terms that recognise survivors' potential collective resilience should be used instead."

Talking About Hillsborough: ‘Panic’ as Discourse in Survivors’ accounts of the 1989 football stadium disaster – Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology.

*The study was funded by an Economic and Social Research Council grant (RES-000-23-0446) to John Drury as Principal Investigator.