Have you ever thought about how you would react if you encountered a sudden disaster? Will you run away immediately, or face it bravely? Will you panic or react calmly? You may find these questions difficult to answer because you have not experienced such a situation. However, for firefighters, these issues are part of their daily routine. Firefighters often face life-or-death emergencies. How do they stay calm and make the right decisions during a crisis? Scientists have studied this and discovered some interesting facts.
##Freeze response: Human instinct What our bodies do when we encounter a threat An instinctive reaction called the freeze response. Like a mouse seeing a cat, we feel stiff and unable to move. This is a defense mechanism that helps us assess risk and make decisions. The freeze response allows us to choose the best course of action, such as flight, fight, or hiding. Therefore, the freezing response is not a useless response, but a beneficial response. ##High-risk occupations: Special training for firefighters However, for a high-risk occupation like firefighters, the freeze response may not be the most appropriate response. Firefighters need to make decisions quickly and respond proactively in extreme situations without wasting time. They need to control their instinctive reactions and use their experience and skills to handle crises. So, how do firefighters do this? Scientists have found that experience and training are key factors. ##Scientific Experiment: Firefighters’ Freeze Response A study from the Netherlands Fire Academy compared the changes in body movements and heart rates of experienced and inexperienced firefighters when they viewed pictures of threatening scenes. A decrease in body movement and heart rate is a sign of the freezing response. The results showed that experienced firefighters froze less often than inexperienced firefighters. Moreover, this difference is not just for fire-related threats, but is valid for all threat scenarios. ##Scientific explanation: The role of experience and training Scientists believe that this finding shows that experience and training can change firefighters’ original defensive reactions. Experienced firefighters benefit from goal-directed behaviors and other coping skills by being more flexibly able to control their reflexive reactions. They were more efficient at dealing with threats than less experienced firefighters, which was reflected in reduced freezing. This does not mean that inexperienced firefighters respond worse to freezing; for them, the degree of freezing is also important to support their risk assessment. ##Future Outlook: Implications of the Freeze Response This study provides a window into how firefighters stay calm during a crisis. It also gets us thinking about the role of the freeze response in resilience and coping. Future research could further explore how experience and training lead to changes in defensive responses and how these changes manifest in different contexts. In addition, this knowledge can also help us better understand some characteristics of mental illness, such as excessive or insufficient coping behaviors. ###Free online psychological test fun test: test your reaction judgment how to test address:
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