The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic

by Cantril,Hadley

• ISBN13: 9781412804707
• ISBN10: 1412804701
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2005-05-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

On Halloween night 1938, Orson Welles broadcast a radio adaptation of the H. G. Wells fantasy, The War of the Worlds. What listeners heard sounded so realistic that at least a million were frightened by word that "strange creatures" from Mars had landed in central New Jersey and were "unleashing a deadly assault." Several thousand were so terrified they ran into the streets, drove away in their cars, or called the police for information about how to escape. Why did so many panic when the circumstances reported were so improbable? That is just the question Hadley Cantril, then a young social psychologist, set out to answer. Using a mix of research methods, Cantril shows that the impact of the broadcast had less to do with what went out over the air than with the "standards of judgment" people did or did not use in evaluating what they were hearing.

Table of Contents

Transaction Introduction	vii
Preface (1966)	xxi
Preface (1940)	xxv
I. "Incredible as it may seem"
THE BROADCAST	3	(44)
(Script by Howard Koch)
II. "It was something terrible"
THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE PANIC	47	(20)
III. "It didn't sound like a play"
HOW THE STIMULUS WAS EXPERIENCED	67	(20)
IV. "We'd better do something"
DESCRIPTION OF REACTIONS	87	(24)
V. "I figured"
CRITICAL ABILITY	111	(16)
VI. "I'm so worried"
CONDITIONS INHIBITING CRITICAL ABILITY	127	(26)
VII. "Being in a troublesome world"
THE HISTORICAL SETTING	153	(14)
VIII. "My background"
THE INDIVIDUAL CASE	167	(22)
IX. "Jitters have come to roost"
WHY THE PANIC?	189	(18)
Appendix A. Miscellaneous information	207	(4)
Appendix B. Interview schedule	211	(10)
Appendix C. Tables	221	(2)
Index	223