Mass panic language mostly labels fear, not actual selfish behaviour.

Evidence

Given that it did not appear to be used strategically, references to ‘mass panic’ by our interviewees can be argued simply to be a function principally of its availability and predominance as a popular off-the-shelf discourse for ‘explaining’ emergencies. It was used either as a gloss on events, or to refer to fear (i.e. emotions), rather than to actual mass panic (i.e. personally selfish and competitive) behaviours. — John Drury and Chris Cocking and Steve Reicher, Everyone for themselves? A comparative…, 114

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the crowd-behavior literature and the myth that panics cause disaster deaths rather than orderly response. — connects to: Mass emergency behaviour stems from social identity, not panic or irrationality — John Drury and Chris Cocking and Steve Reicher, Everyone for themselves? A comparative…, 122
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John Drury and Chris Cocking and Steve Reicher, Everyone for themselves? A comparative…, 114

Related

• Mass emergency behaviour stems from social identity, not panic or irrationality (similarity 0.87)
• Mass panic is rare even under conditions theorized to produce it (similarity 0.84)
• Empirical studies find crowd panic is rare even under extreme threat. (similarity 0.84)
• Early mass-panic theory saw crowds as dissolving social bonds into competitive fear via contagion. (similarity 0.83)
• Even in bad evacuations panic stays confined to a small fraction (similarity 0.81)
• Emergencies typically produce mutual aid and orderliness rather than competitive panic. (similarity 0.80)
• Social norms, not panic, structure emergency behaviour (similarity 0.80)
• Crowd ‘panic’ is rarely the true cause of disaster deaths (similarity 0.79)
• Mutual helping, not selfish flight, is the dominant emergency behaviour (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Mass emergency behaviour stems from social identity, not panic or irrationality #corroborates (0.80) — John Drury and Chris Cocking and Steve Reicher, Everyone for themselves? A comparative…, 122