Have you ever found yourself ignoring warnings about something after you have heard it an infinite amount of times? I’ve noticed people have a habit of ignoring fire alarms, likely because they have heard so many in their lives without any real fires that the alarm has become meaningless. I call this the “Fire Drill Effect” but it is a well documented psychological phenomenon. The Washington Post had a piece recently about how the same situation is beginning to play out for terrorism alerts. The authors argues that they are thrown at US citizens so frequently that their impact has been significantly diminished.

The problem is not that people are cavalier about terrorism. The problem is that when a warning is repeated over and over — and then nothing bad happens — the human brain is designed to discount the warning. From an evolutionary perspective, attention is a precious commodity, not to be wasted on threats that do not carry immediate consequences.

This is a fascinating process that I hope is brought to attention on a greater level, but I can imagine that those responsible for warning the public would rather make sure some announcement is made for all relevant threats than just issue warnings that will be “heard” by the public.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 21 Nov 2006
    Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.