Why do people take extreme risks to save the lives of others?

We grow up being taught to look before we leap and think before we act, especially in dangerous situations. In its booklet on dealing with “active shooters,” the Department of Homeland Security lists confrontation as the “last resort,” after, among other things, taking note of the nearest exits and locking yourself in an office. Police tell us not to confront someone “armed and dangerous.” And our spouses and other loved ones tell us, “don’t be a hero.”

Yet it turns out, according to a recent study of why people take extreme risks to save lives that are at immediate risk, that the ones who do indeed come to the rescue, like the three Americans on that French train, are those who completely disregard all that advice.

If you stop to contemplate whether to act when the danger actually confronts you, you probably won’t, the study suggests.

And the answer to the question “what were they thinking when they risked their lives?” is that they weren’t thinking, at least not very much. They just did it. If you think about it too much, you won’t.

Yale scholar David Rand called it the “danger of deliberation” in an interview with The Washington Post, and it appears to be the biggest deterrent to what he calls “extreme altruism.”

That’s the essential finding of Rand’s study with co-author Zev G. Epstein of Pomona College, “Risking Your Life without a Second Thought: Intuitive Decision-Making and Extreme Altruism.”

The study does not take issue with such warnings, urge any course of action or pass moral judgment.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/24/american-heroes-in-france-why-some-people-risk-their-lives-to-save-others/?tid=hp_mm&hpid=z3