Episodes
Saturday Dec 02, 2017
The Anatomy Of Panic
Saturday Dec 02, 2017
Saturday Dec 02, 2017
PODCAST-Research Findings from the War of the Worlds Hysteria and the Reluctance by the Most Fearful People to Confirm Statements and How This Still Happens Today | Additional Perspectives on Parents Nixing the DC 8th Grade Class Trip Due to Terrorist Attacks Fears | David Loved Working at Menards in College | Mr. Meeseeks is 6-6. CANCELING THE 8th GRADE CLASS TRIP TO DC - THE PARENTS’ PERSPECTIVE. As expressed in last week’s show, David felt that parents in a school district near Cleveland made a collectively poor decision by asking administration to cancel an 8th grade class trip to Washington DC due to fears of a mass shooting or terror attack. Yes, children are the most valuable assets of parents and a compelling sense of “protection” is natural. However, when such protective measures create a mini-verse youth are provided a negatively-skewed perception that the nation (not the world) is on the omni-present cusp of attack. People tend to double down when they are afraid. Dr. Perrodin saw this first hand as a school administrator and that visceral feeling is impenetrable to empirical science with no guarantee that something won’t happen - and people want that guarantee. An interesting statistical take-away from a bus trip to and from DC is that a student has roughly the same probability of perishing in a bus accident than via an attack - and both are very rare instances - less likely than being struck by lightning. THE SAFETY CONTEXT WAS FRACTURED THE PAST 2 MONTHS. Let’s look deeper into the anatomy of panic - and this is the state David deemed the parents to be in a few weeks ago when thwarting the DC trip with raw recall of the Vegas shooting, Manhattan bike / walkway attack by vehicle, Sutherland Springs and ongoing saber rattling from North Korea. WE’VE BEEN THROUGH UNCERTAIN TIMES BEFORE. Dr. Perrodin shares that his Mother was a child during WWII and she recalls air raid drills - diving under desks and “blackouts” at night - which were especially scary as she imagined German bombers descending into Wisconsin from Canada. Wisconsin was home to the largest munitions factory during the war - located near Baraboo / Sauk City. The narrative was plausible. Also, Britain’s citizens were remarkable robust during WWII - out during the day and orderly cued to shelters per wailing air raid sirens. It’s a different context and such, but there are lessons from our past. We can’t be afraid to, with awareness, participate in our iffy world. INVASION FROM MARS - ANATOMY OF PANIC. On October 28, 1938 many Americans believed they were being invaded by Martians. This was the result of a Halloween stunt orchestrated by Orson Wells in which he adapted H. G. Wells’ ‘War of the Worlds’ to the radio and broadcast the play as though it was actually happening. For Professor Howard Cantril of Princeton University and colleagues, this provided the perfect opportunity to investigate the anatomy of panic (Cantril, Gaudet & Herzog, 1940). Shortly after the event he interviewed 135 people in New Jersey to try and understand how they had reacted and what might have affected how they reacted. The most surprising category of people are those who failed to check the broadcast. Cantril found that those who fell into this category were also those who were most fearful and most likely to “double down” on their perceived “real” memories. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts RSS feed. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to comments & emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse & debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety. Email David: thesafetydoc@gmail.com
Monday Nov 27, 2017
Rhetoric Wins As School Trip To DC Canceled Over Fears Of Attack
Monday Nov 27, 2017
Monday Nov 27, 2017
"An eighth-grade class trip to Washington, D.C., can often be the highlight of grade school - see the White House, meet your member of Congress. But students from North Ridgeville City School District outside of Cleveland, Ohio were notified recently their D.C. trip was canceled. Administrators called it off because of fears of a terrorist attack or a mass shooting" (per NPR reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro, November, 2017). PARENTS MADE THE DECISION TO NIX THE TRIP. The parents pressured the school superintendent to cancel the trip – noting a myriad of safety concerns from active shooter to a vehicle jumping onto a walking path. The killing of 8 people by a motorist intentionally driving on a Manhattan bike path in October likely contributed to the parents’ fears and the October 1st Las Vegas mass shooting certainly was fresh in the adults’ minds. To his credit, district superintendent Jim Powell was tactful in his statements, but also expressed regret in the parents’ collective position as he stated he had taken his own family on a trip to Washington D.C. SENTINEL NATIONAL INCIDENTS CREATE MASS HYSTERIA AND CONVINCE PARENTS THE NATION IS NOT SAFE. When asked if he had to previously cancel a trip like this because of fears, superintendent Powell stated he recalled districts canceling trips right after 9/11/01. Lulu Garcia-Navarro pointed out that safety incidents can occur just about anywhere, whether in a small town or a big city. Her statement is interesting considering the November, 2017 mass murder at the church in tiny Sutherland Springs, Texas. Yes, these events can and do happen everywhere. Also, Washington D.C. boasts a strong police presence and its various public safety forces train diligently to promote safe environments for tourists. Furthermore, these students live 22 miles from Cleveland – which per several metrics I reviewed presents its own risks to personal safety. DENYING ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME EXPERIENCE FOR STUDENTS & THWARTING FUTURE RECONNAISSANCE. A statistical fact is that the students were as (un)likely to perish in a bus accident to /from DC as per being victims of an attack in DC. The odds were less than being struck by lightning. TEACH AWARENESS & LEARN SAFE TRAVEL TIPS. There are numerous reputable websites, as well as professional services, to help schools plan and carryout safe trips to the nation’s capital. Examples are https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/education and https://www.nationsclassroomtours.com/school-tours/school-trips-to-washington-dc Canceling this trip when there was not an imminent threat warning for DC sends powerful, and wrong, messages to youth. First, our nation’s capital is not safe, and hence, our nation is not safe. Second, you’re taking your lives in your own hands if you travel domestically or abroad. Third, forget about engaging in reconnaissance as a teen or young adult as America is simply too dangerous to explore without an armada. Learning how to be a safe traveler is an essential skill in our global economy. More than a trip to DC was taken from these students. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts RSS feed. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to comments & emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse & debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety. Email David: thesafetydoc@gmail.com
Saturday Nov 18, 2017
The Equifax Credit Breach - Here's What You Need To Do Now!
Saturday Nov 18, 2017
Saturday Nov 18, 2017
To freeze or not to freeze (your credit), that is the question – and with entertaining prose, Dr. Perrodin, helps you measure the thorny considerations that will yield your noble answer in midst of the slings and arrows of outrageous fiscal fortunes. If you have a credit report, there's a good chance that you're one of the 143 million American consumers whose sensitive personal information was exposed in a data breach at Equifax, one of the nation's three major credit agencies. David explains that the agencies are not extensions of the government and how locking credit now is a solid option (in his opinion). WHAT PERSONAL DATA WAS HACKED? Per Seena Gressin, Attorney, Division of Consumer & Business Education, FTC, The Equifax breach lasted from mid-May through July. The hackers accessed people’s names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers. They also stole credit card numbers for about 209,000 people and dispute documents with personal identifying information for about 182,000 people. And they grabbed personal information of people in the UK and Canada too. WHAT ARE CREDIT BUREAUS AND WHY DO THEY EXIST? There are three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian and Transunion and they took root across the United States in the roaring 1920s. Credit bureaus were created to help lenders and creditors decide potential customers that were “credit worthy.” However, it was voluntary for businesses and government agencies to “share” individuals’ financial history with the bureaus. ARE THE CREDIT BUREAUS GOVERNMENT AGENCIES? Nope! It might surprise you to learn that none of the credit bureaus are federal agencies. In fact, they have no government affiliations whatsoever! These are private companies that collect information from creditors regarding your credit history. They sell this information to creditors and the data is used to determine if you are “credit worthy.” If you use little credit, meaning you have paid in cash, don’t have a stack of credit cards, or own your house, you might actually receive a subpar credit score as you haven’t “demonstrated” an ability to manage debt. Yes, as insane as that sounds, it’s an accurate summation of the punishment of fiscally conservative minimalists. SHOULD I FREEZE MY CREDIT? Probably. Check with valuepenguin.com for state by state information on how to freeze and thaw your credit and the associated fees. Expect to pay $30 to freeze your credit at the “Big 3” bureaus and you must deal with each on its finicky process to freeze and thaw credit. The benefit to a freeze is that someone won’t be able to take out a loan in your name – your risk for identity fraud drops. DOWNFALL TO FREEZING CREDIT. Most potential employers want to check your credit – so that requires you to thaw it, and then freeze it again – and there’s $60 down the drain. Now, apply for a car loan, and another freeze and thaw cycle. In fact, young job hunters can end up paying hundreds in freeze/law fees. By the way, the default setting by the “Big 3” is to have your credit open. I believe that the default should be to have frozen credit. Also, charging fees each time credit is thawed and the (re)-frozen seems like a scam. Oh, TransUnion’s stock price has increased 75% year-to-date and despite the Equifax fumble, its stock is down less than 8% in 2017. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts RSS feed. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to comments & emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse & debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety. Email David: thesafetydoc@gmail.com
Sunday Nov 12, 2017
Subjective Reality Versus Objective Reality
Sunday Nov 12, 2017
Sunday Nov 12, 2017
Subjective reality is “subject” to an elaborate set of filters, any one of which can modify a perception of that reality; sensory apparatus (e.g. the rods and cones in our eyes), sensory processing (e.g. the visual cortex), higher level brain function, and psychological factors (e.g. expectations). As such, what one person experiences is always different than what any other person experiences, but usually in subtle ways. SUBJECTIVE REALITY EXAMPLE. Two weeks of sunshine, high temperatures and no rain for many people is seen as desirable and good. The farmer however would like some rain in between times because otherwise his fields dry out, older people are not so happy with high air temperatures because it causes breathing difficulties etc. Who is being objective here? Obviously our assessment of the weather depends amongst other things significantly on what we want to do (swimming in an outdoor pool, working in the field, working in an office, travelling, resting etc.), upon our mood and our state of health. Exactly the same weather on a given day gives one person great pleasure and another one annoyance. EXPECTATIONS. A mental representation of an impending event relies heavily on information from past experience and, therefore, must incorporate information from brain regions associated with memory recall. The hippocampus is involved in neural processes supporting the retrieval of past memories and is reciprocally connected with the amygdala in a fashion that may support affective modulation of memory recall. Expectations of decreased pain profoundly reduce both the subjective experience of pain and pain-related brain activation. FILM / MEDIA INFLUENCE WHAT WE PERCEIVE AS REALITY. Kenneth Boulding (1956) did not write about how film influenced people's "images" but he did write about how messages change or fail to change the "images" people have of their world. "Images" are people's store of subjective knowledge about an event, person, or an experience. It is our overall image that determines our behavior. Boulding pointed out that any message has meaning to the extent that it can change our image. Messages often have a limited impact, particularly entertainment messages, and are interpreted as irrelevant to our image. Many messages can have a regularized impact, changing the image in a predictable manner. These types of messages serve to confirm existing beliefs and add detail to images we already hold. A message can also have a profound impact, changing the image in a revolutionary way. We can discover new facts, encounter new theories about why an event happened, and have our convictions about a past "truth" weakened. Historians feared radical change in what people thought about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, due to Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie, JFK, which promoted a conspiracy. Objective Reality & Consensus Reality. Objective reality completely exists independent of any conscious entity to observe it. It also is bound to the consensus requirement. For you to see a passing car and make it turn red just because you want to, would violate the color consensus that must be maintained for the other 1000 people that see that car drive by. In fact, there is nothing to say that the aggregate of conscious intents from all conscious entities fully shape the subjective reality. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts RSS feed. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to comments & emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse & debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety. Email David: thesafetydoc@gmail.com
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
The Humor Response - A Deeper Look
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
A person loses a loved one and smiles or laughs. Why? To the scientific eye, the seemingly misplaced humor manifestations reveal pain and regret. Dr. Perrodin explores popular theories of humor and demystifies the science behind laughter and discovers that laughter can be a formidable cognitive self-defense tool. This is known as Relief Theory. SNIPPETS OF LAUGHTER – EXAMPLES OF PYSCHOLOGICAL DEFENSE. Conspiracy theories are frequently peppered with video or audio snippets, separated from context, of persons who experienced a sentinel trauma such as losing a child or a spouse. Per Relief Theory, laughter is a normal human response to a situation that is starkly incongruent with everyday life. This biological coping mechanism is well-documented and also an affect that simply mismatches to the narrative. This may explain why some psychologists classify humor as one of the "mature" defense mechanisms we invoke to guard ourselves against overwhelming anxiety (as compared to the "psychotic," "immature," and "neurotic" defense mechanisms). Being able to laugh at traumatic events in our own lives doesn't cause us to ignore them, but instead seems to prepare us to endure them. WHY WE LAUGH – HOW LAUGHTER CAN HELP BUILD RESILIENCE. Dr. Perrodin describes the work of Alex Lickerman, M.D., who authored the book The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self Online: Happiness in this World (2011). “Interestingly, this same nervous laughter has been noted to occur in many psychological experiments when subjects have found themselves placed under a high degree of emotional stress specifically involving perceived harm to others. Perhaps the most famous of these experiments were those conducted by Stanley Milgram, who set out to discover why some people will blindly follow authority (the impetus being a desire to understand the behavior of soldiers in Nazi Germany). He brought in test subjects and asked them to deliver a series of increasingly powerful electric shocks to an unseen person (the "learner") to see just how much voltage they would deliver before refusing to continue. An astounding 65% delivered the experiment's final jolt of 450 volts, fully believing they were actually shocking the "learners." (It turns out, they weren't. The "learners" were members of Milgram's team playing a role.) In the paper he published on his experiment, Milgram made mention of several subjects who began to laugh nervously once they heard screams of pain coming from the unseen "learners," and suggested this was a phenomenon that deserved further study. BEING ABLE TO JOKE ABOUT A TRAUMATIC LOSS USUALLY REQUIRES THE HEALING DISTANCE OF TIME. Being victimized, for example, may make us suicidal when it first occurs, but with the passage of time we adapt to the loss and eventually may even find ourselves able to joke about it. What magic does the passage of time work on us that permits us to laugh at what once made us cry? Perhaps definitive proof that the alarm our loss raised when it first occurred was, in fact, "false." After all, we survived it and became happy again. WWII HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR VIKTOR FRANKL cited laughter as fundamental to preservation of his psyche. "Humor, more than anything else in the human makeup, affords an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.” FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts RSS feed. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to comments & emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse & debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety. Email David: thesafetydoc@gmail.com
Thursday Aug 03, 2017
Back To School Safety Special - Time To Be Terrified!!
Thursday Aug 03, 2017
Thursday Aug 03, 2017
High-drama multi-agency intruder response simulations transpire daily in schools across America. This hyper-realistic approach to school safety has produced a flurry of litigation centering psychological trauma for adults and children. Furthermore, theatrical drills are not supported by empirical research and differ greatly from the ways schools prepare for other disasters, such as fires and tornadoes. For example, when the fire alarm sounds, students don’t enter a smoke-filled hallway. Dr. Perrodin offers key safety suggestions for staff, administrators, and students. FOR STAFF. Exercise situational awareness and trust your gut feeling - quickly report concerns to administration. Go thru the harassment and threat input system step-by-step with all students and give extra training to youth with special needs. ADMINISTRATORS. Assure staff that you will HAVE THEIR BACK if they exercise discretion to act in the best interest of students, others or self. Inform staff that is there is a school intruder event, the entire school property might be considered a crime scene and they might not be able to retrieve personal belongings or vehicles for a day or more. EDUCATE PARENTS. Inform parents that in the event of an intruder or other lockdown situation to NOT drive to the school to pick up their child unless directed to do so by the school. Parents converging on a scene interfere with emergency responders. Also, let them know that you will tell them that staging or pick-up areas as the situation will dictate where emergency officials deem those will be located - which could be several blocks or even a few miles away in the event of a tornado. Too often the evacuation site is a location a block away from the school. STUDENTS. Be explicit in covering the school handbook for areas of safety - including threat to others and threat of harm to self. Students can create PSA videos about the handbook. Have students demonstrate the reporting process. ALARMING FINDINGS ABOUT FIRE DRILL RESEARCH. Many schools throughout the United States are mandated to hold drills, or operational exercises, to prepare for fires, tornadoes, violence, and other emergencies. Despite recommendations by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and USDOE, no local or federal agency routinely monitors the frequency and quality of school drills. Hence, drills are often checklist activities and not exercises to better inform practice. Furthermore, research that has been done to assess the impact of drills suggests that they produce both benefits, such as students learning the evacuation location, and drawbacks, including student apathy and becoming desensitized to drills. BETTER PRACTICES. Host a community assembly a week before school starts - record it, play it on cable access and make available from school website, how about a 30-second advertisement in the local movie theater? Tell people what to expect during and following a school crisis! 4 SIMPLE QUESTIONS WILL IMPROVE SCHOOL SAFETY. Within 30 minutes of a drill, have all staff respond to a four question survey that asks: (1) Your location during the drill, (2) Did you hear the announcement of the drill (3) Any questions / constructive input, (4) What questions did students have? FOLLOW. DR. PERRODIN: On Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to “The Safety Doc” YouTube channel & SoundCloud RSS feed. DR. PERRODIN'S SAFETY BLOG: crisisprepconsulting.wordpress.com SAFETY DOC WEBSITE: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to discussion thread comments & emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show is curse free & adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse & debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety. Email David: thesafetydoc@gmail.com