WNYC featured an interesting interview with David Wallace-Wells, a NY magazine editor mentioned in the NY magazine article who was at JFK when the event happened.
http://www.wnyc.org/story/shooting-wasnt-jfk-airport-exposes-holes-security/ Miguel ________________________________________ From: Mike Palij [m...@nyu.edu] Sent: Friday, August 26, 2016 9:46 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Michael Palij Subject: re: [tips] Panic at JFK On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 17:15:00 -0700, Robin Musselman wrote: >I'm wondering for those of you living in the New York area, what >was the truth about the JFK airport incident. If one lives in the NYC area, I think it is a truism that no one ever really knows what "truthfully" happened in any situation. Sometimes one might know what the "truth" is but, as Denzel Washington's character said in the movie "Training Day": "It's not what you know, it's what you can prove." And I think the standard for "proof" is whether it can stand up in court. The classic example of this are the audio tape recordings that Richard Nixon made in the Oval Office: if he had destroyed them, it would have been just his word against, say, John Dean's but he didn't destroy them and one can hear him incriminate himself on the tapes. With the tapes, we know the truth of what really happened (however, truth only seems to matter, riffing on Jack Nicholson character in "A Few Good Man", if one can handle the truth -- a number of people back in Nixon's day would not believe such things about Nixon without the tapes [some still didn't even with the tape], kinda like the situation with our current day Voldemort). >Initially I read about it in the NYTimes and it didn't resonant with >me, >that is until I read the story in this week's New York Magazine. Haven't read the NY Mag piece yet, but the local news channels (e.g., WNBC) report: (1) The Port Authority police did things according to the book, and, (2) The book is seriously Fubar'ed (a "German" word if one has seen "Saving Private Ryan", an acronym if one has seen Ken Burn's "The War" documentary series. >This is not the post, but you can get the general idea here > http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/08/report-shots-fired-at-jfk-airport.html I'd read it now but I think I need another cup of coffee before the old cognitive box is working effectively. >It is an interesting case study of group behaviors... I use the Bordens & Abbott Research Methods textbook in my research methods/exp psych lab courses and in one place (I forget which chapter but can find it if anyone wants me to) they discuss how scientists try to look beneath the surface of a situation and try to find relationships that may hold across superficially similar/dissimilar situation. The examples they use are the crowd panic at the Who concert a way back and the crowd panic in a theatre (I think they refer to a specific situation but you get the idea). Why do people panic in these situations instead of remaining calm and dealing with it "rationally". What is common to both situations that can explain the two situations (the degree to which one sees the two situations as being unique or similar depends upon the individual and the person's knowledge and attitude -- similar situations exist in the study of hurricanes, earthquakes, other natural catastrophes, zombie apocalypse scenarios, etc.). B&A suggest that limited access to desired resources is one basis for the panicked behavior (I think they cite a source on this) and this explains why people panic in what appears to be different situations. A case study approach *might* suggest that these situations are unique (i.e., too many different details) but a more general research approach may come up with relationships among factors common to these different situations. So, what happened at JFK? Damned if I know. All I can say is "Don't Panic!" and stay out of the way of stampeding hoards. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu P.S. Happy "Women's Equity Day", especially if you're in Pennsylvania because it looks like you really need it; see: http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/growls/Womens-equity-in-Pennsylvania-Not-so-much.html --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: ro...@stjohns.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=1632838.7e62b84813297f170a6fc240dab8c12d&n=T&l=tips&o=49326 or send a blank email to leave-49326-1632838.7e62b84813297f170a6fc240dab8c...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@mail-archive.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=49328 or send a blank email to leave-49328-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
