normalcy bias

English

Noun

normalcy bias (plural normalcy biases)

1. (sociology) A human tendency to respond to threat warnings with disbelief or minimization, and to similarly underestimate a disaster's deleterious effects.

References

• Haim Omer and Nahman Alon, “The Continuity Principle: A Unified Approach to Disaster and Trauma”, American Journal of Community Psychology 22, no. 2 (April 1994): 275–276 ("... normalcy bias consists in underestimating the probability of disaster, or the disruption involved in it ..."). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02506866 PMID 7977181

• T. E. Drabek, Human System Responses to Disaster: an Inventory of Sociological Findings (New York: Springer Verlag, 1986): 72 ("The initial response to a disaster warning is disbelief.") ISBN 9781461249603 (e-book) | OCLC 1037648749