Fire

Had a fire training session at work today as I am one of the designated fire marshalls. Was really very interesting and it got us out of the office for a few hours. We were shown a number of videos to demonstrate how people react when a fire starts but there was one that really interested me as it links to my current psychology essay. In a study called the smoke filled room experiment, it took participants an average of 12 minutes to leave a room which started to fill with smoke. All because the rest of the participants (who were actors) continued to fill in the forms they had been asked to complete, seemingly not noticing any signs of a fire. It took one participant 20 minutes to leave, enough time for the room to go up in flames if it had been real. The lady in question had clearly noticed the fire and showed signs that she thought it was something to be concerned about but, after looking around to see what everyone else was doing, stayed put too. Amazing that as humans we believe we are independent to make our own decisions but we are so easily lead by others, even going against our better judgement. This is affected mainly by our desire to be liked and our desire to be right. Effectively we don't want to look stupid or foolish so we don't speak up.

Anyway, back to the point. The best part of the training was using the fire extinguishers to put out a fire which I fully intended to take a photo of for today's blip but, I got a little carried away and forgot. So here is a match instead as a way of linking to my day.