soylent media (a notebook on emergence)

emotions and pro-social and religious sentiments during the September 11 disaster

Abstract:

Analysing emotional states under duress or during heightened, life-and-death situations is extremely difficult, especially given the inability of laboratory experiments to adequately replicate the environment and the inherent biases of post event surveys.  It is in this  area that  natural experiments  come to the fore by combining the randomization that comes from natural data with an experimentally realistic event. The pager communications from September 11th, made publicly 

available by Wiki Leaks (Wiki Leaks, 2009), provide exactly the kind of natural experiment emotion researchers have been seeking.  We have  analysed the pager messages by applying an absolute count methodology and by presenting both positive and negative emotive categories as well as the development of  pro-social and religious sentiment. Providing  behavioural evidence on how people communicate under  extreme circumstances and offers valuable insights into human nature. We demonstrate that positive and pro-social communications are the first to emerge followed by the slower and lower negative  communications. Religious sentiment is the last to emerge, as individual attempt to make sense of event.