If the ship is sinking, do you save yourself or risk your life to save others? The answer, it seems, depends on how long the sinking takes. If there’s enough time, you can switch from adrenalin-driven self-preservation to conscience-driven self-sacrifice.
Or maybe it wasn't some biological element, and was instead the philosophy implicitly held by a bunch of people who were all raised in an altruistic society.
The decision to help save others isn't necessarily a selfish one either. There are selfish justifications to help strangers in an emergency. All strangers are potentially valuable to you, due to the nature of humans and what they're capable of. Whether the action was selfish or selfless depends on how much risk you put yourself in, and how important the people were to you that you were saving.
Given the Titantic's location - far out in the Atlantic in icy water - men would have recognized the futility of jumping overboard.
The Lusitania, on the other hand, went down in May only 8 miles from Ireland. Under these conditions, I would take my chances in the water and put some distance between myself and ship before it went down in the hope of swimming to land or getting pulled out of the water by the locals. Swimming for shore is a strategy that would certainly favor strong young men.
One should note that on the Titanic, where first class men had higher survivor rates than third class men, it was still less than any group of women or children. One would think, seeing the movie, that class explained most of the survivorship, but instead it was gender and age.
Could be that they are rational utilitarian maximizers that value every human life but value the lives of women and children more...
...the time difference just shifted the budget constraint so that high total utility could be achieved by saving as many as could arrive on time (selecting for athleticism) versus saving those that are preferred (which requires time-costly sorting).
"If there’s enough time, you can switch from adrenalin-driven self-preservation to conscience-driven self-sacrifice."
How about a third choice, conscience-driven self-preservation?
For instance, if I'm a single mother who's raising three children by herself (and I'm on the ship while my kids are at home), I might save myself, not because of adrenalin-driven self-preservation, but because of conscience-driven self- (and family-) preservation.
Or maybe there is no deep psychological mystery here. Lots of survivors from Lusitania were pulled out of the water or were in the water before they managed to get into boats. I think these circumstances favour men.
Hmmm...I was with you up until the remark about "social image." An alternative hypothesis is that people in the early 20th centure held a sincere belief that saving women and children is the right thing to do, and they do so if they aren't in a panic.
I don't see a connection to near-far here. Time available is not a suitable proxy for mode of thought used, because there are selection effects that aren't mediated by thought at all - the Lusitania selected for getting to lifeboats in time, ie running speed, while the Titanic selected for getting limited spots on them, ie status.
Do we know if the Titanic also had more time for leaders/officers to emerge to push people into Far Mode? Or is far mode more likely just because of having more time? It would be good to know if this was a decentralized shift to/from Far Mode or merely a result of a few leaders in Far Mode being able to shame the majority.
I just added to this post.
Or maybe it wasn't some biological element, and was instead the philosophy implicitly held by a bunch of people who were all raised in an altruistic society.
The decision to help save others isn't necessarily a selfish one either. There are selfish justifications to help strangers in an emergency. All strangers are potentially valuable to you, due to the nature of humans and what they're capable of. Whether the action was selfish or selfless depends on how much risk you put yourself in, and how important the people were to you that you were saving.
I wonder if location was another factor.
Given the Titantic's location - far out in the Atlantic in icy water - men would have recognized the futility of jumping overboard.
The Lusitania, on the other hand, went down in May only 8 miles from Ireland. Under these conditions, I would take my chances in the water and put some distance between myself and ship before it went down in the hope of swimming to land or getting pulled out of the water by the locals. Swimming for shore is a strategy that would certainly favor strong young men.
n=2
One should note that on the Titanic, where first class men had higher survivor rates than third class men, it was still less than any group of women or children. One would think, seeing the movie, that class explained most of the survivorship, but instead it was gender and age.
Could be that they are rational utilitarian maximizers that value every human life but value the lives of women and children more...
...the time difference just shifted the budget constraint so that high total utility could be achieved by saving as many as could arrive on time (selecting for athleticism) versus saving those that are preferred (which requires time-costly sorting).
Good point.
"If there’s enough time, you can switch from adrenalin-driven self-preservation to conscience-driven self-sacrifice."
How about a third choice, conscience-driven self-preservation?
For instance, if I'm a single mother who's raising three children by herself (and I'm on the ship while my kids are at home), I might save myself, not because of adrenalin-driven self-preservation, but because of conscience-driven self- (and family-) preservation.
Or maybe there is no deep psychological mystery here. Lots of survivors from Lusitania were pulled out of the water or were in the water before they managed to get into boats. I think these circumstances favour men.
That's not an alternative to Robin's explanation. Robin is purporting to give a deeper explanation--one that acounts for *why* people felt that way.
Hmmm...I was with you up until the remark about "social image." An alternative hypothesis is that people in the early 20th centure held a sincere belief that saving women and children is the right thing to do, and they do so if they aren't in a panic.
People on the Titanic didn't really believe in the danger till- well.
I don't see a connection to near-far here. Time available is not a suitable proxy for mode of thought used, because there are selection effects that aren't mediated by thought at all - the Lusitania selected for getting to lifeboats in time, ie running speed, while the Titanic selected for getting limited spots on them, ie status.
Do we know if the Titanic also had more time for leaders/officers to emerge to push people into Far Mode? Or is far mode more likely just because of having more time? It would be good to know if this was a decentralized shift to/from Far Mode or merely a result of a few leaders in Far Mode being able to shame the majority.