There's an article about panic by Bruce Tognazzini, user interface expert and former designer at Apple Computer, that may be of interest. His focus is mostly on technology failures (he uses examples from airplane flight and scuba diving), but the discussion has implications for dealing with other survival situations.

Panic! How it Works and What to Do About It

<http://www.asktog.com/columns/066Panic!.html>

One of the key points seems to be that when you get into trouble, it's really important to have a system that allows you to keep thing simple. He cites a statistic that might be controversial - perhaps the pilots here could comment. He states that twin-engine aircraft have FOUR times the fatality rate of single-engine aircraft. When a single-engine plane has problems, the pilot "has a clear realization that we’ve ended the flying portion of our trip," whereas the twin-engine pilot has a lot more opportunities for panic to induce bad decision-making. Furthermore, no one believes that this statistic applies in their own case.