Incident Stereotyping – we are all guilty!

It is easy to gain a false perception when responding to an emergency if it is something we have faced before, or think we know how it will play out – that over familiarity leading us to stereotype an incident situation.

Incident stereotyping is forming judgements or beliefs that manifest as oversimplified opinions, a prejudiced attitude, or critical judgment of the situation. This results in decision making that could be overgeneralized, inaccurate, or resistant to new information – creating flawed judgement.

An example of incident stereotyping planning is creating an emergency plan for adverse weather and assuming that storms only happen in the late Autumn or Winter months – let’s face it, in Europe particularly in the UK, the Autumn/Winter months are generally cold and wet with a handful of named storms making their presence felt each year. Local to me in the UK we have had three significant storm events, one that led to 34 lives being lost in the month of August – the other two events caused major flooding with property damage. It is easy to stereotype that Winter is the time for stormy weather not the Summer that only brings good weather with the odd chance of some rain – not devastating storms.

When faced with an incident, one that may look similar, or have that familiarity about it, the risk is that through stereotyping, there will exist the expectation that the incident will play out the same way if we respond to it the same way as last time. I would challenge anyone to say that they have never dealt with an incident and not held some form of stereotypical opinion of it only to be proved wrong.

So how do we stop introducing incident stereotyping, consciously or sub-consciously, into our emergency management and decision making? Acknowledge and have that awareness that incident stereotyping could occur in yourself and within the wider response team. Remove the use of ‘I believe’, ‘I assume’, ‘I think’, ‘I presume’, from the language we use; replace with ‘I know’ – if you don’t know find out – really understand what it is you are faced with.

Treat each incident as though it’s the first time that it has happened – follow the plan or the response process for it, don’t be tempted to take process short cuts or be dismissive of, or prejudge the information that you are receiving because it fits a perception that you ‘think’ you know. If, and only if time allows, don’t rush to ‘plan A’ just because it’s worked in the past consider alternate options.

In your emergency planning look at it with ‘fresh eyes’ challenge yourself that this plan or element of it is correct, the information is current, and it will succeed if we need it. Learn and perform that critical analysis from previous incident events – if one good thing ever comes out of any incident it should be that regular ability and commitment that ‘we will learn from this and build in improvements to our responses’. Don’t be the person that says; “It worked last time ok, so I’m assuming it will next time we are faced with the same thing…!”

Finally; don’t assume you know if you don’t know for certain, be acutely aware of and recognize your own vulnerability to be led by stereotypical views…..