Preparedness Inherited?

I have been thinking lately that the tendency to be prepared for emergencies might have a strong, or even primary, genetic component. It seems self evident that life experiences like scouting and role models and mentors have a primary influence on all of us. However, I am noticing among those I know that there appears to be an inherited need to be prepared that can't be accounted for by these factors. I wonder if there have been any separated twin data on this or related traits. Have the other members of this forum been thinking this as well? Just curious what you all think

There may be something inherited through our survival instinct, but other than that I doubt it has much to do with our DNA. A more likely explanation is past experience. Some people are able to learn from the experience of others, some need to go through it themselves and others never learn.

Take something simple such as the tendency to carry a knife. I've had a knife on me pretty much continually since I was 10 yo. My father never carried a knife. If he needed one he'd borrow mine (what are kids for ). One of my brothers usually has a knife handy, the other is just like Dad, he borrows one.

So on the evolutionary scale, did I devolve? I don't think so. Dad was raised in an urban neighborhood, but he moved to the country and I was raised in a rural environment.

There may be some genetic component to being a worrier or having a nervous disposition that might cause a person to drift into preparedness. But this same personality trait may end up with a person preparing for an event that may never come or a threat that exists mostly in their head. I can interpret the foil hat wearing loony as a person who is prepared for mind control rays that haven't been developed yet. Are they ahead of their time or are they spinning their treads?

People tend to adapt to their perceived environment.

I personally don't think that there is a "preparedness gene," at least the well-rounded preparedness the way we think of the term. Some might argue that females have that maternal instinct to care for her young or that vague "nesting instinct". I think personal experiences and your parents' attitudes are primarily responsible for whether we grow up being preparedness-minded, whether postively or negatively reinforcing it. For example, you might have had totally un-prepared parents and have vivid memories of some childhood event and that has caused you to be the opposite.

However, when it comes to particular traits, whether it's the hoarding of supplies or the stockpiling of weapons that goes along with some sense of paranoia, I could believe that there is a genetic component to those traits.

I strongly doubt there is a genetic factor. Instead, I would say it is due to experience and education, but not even then. For example, my mother and grandparents are where I learned preparedness from, but her sister is less than worthless in an emergency, crisis or inconvenience, and is utterly unprepared.

What makes one more likely to survive (intelligence, body type, metabolism, etc) do have genetic predisposition, but life style and experience have at least as much to do with those as genes do.

Definitely a product of conditioning rather than genetics.

Ability does not induce experience. There have been a lot of really fit people that never made it home for lack of really knowing how.

I hate to say this, being a woman and all, but not all women have the nesting instinct. There are some women out there that think it's totally the mans job to be the prepared one and have no interest in handeling anything worse than a broken nail. In all fairness though, I've known some men that couldn't change a tire. These people count on having someone around them that is prepared. I think it has more to do with how you are raised. If you're taught to rely on others then thats what you do. I was taught that you rely on yourself even in a crowd. Unless people start getting the kids away from the video games and tv once in a while, I don't see a very prepared future.

Angel,

You've brought up some rather disturbing points and facts.

Like Susan, I think you have managed to cut through the psycho-babble and get right to the heart of the matter. I sure wish you were wrong but I know that you're right!!

A lot has to do with how people see themselves. In part along a generalist-specialist scalar and also on a scalar of everyday life-emergency.

I have relatives who are so tied up with specialization I really think the guys would starve to death surrounded by food. They don't know how to make a sandwich or heat soup. They couldn't sew on a button if their life depended on it. These are 'woman's work' and they have no desire to learn.

Generalists usually have a leg up in an emergency.

Related but different is the idea that there is some great qualitative difference between everyday life and some hypothetical emergency. Many people who are otherwise unprepared can handle an emergency if someone simple states in plain, unvarnished language that 'this is an emergency', 'the normal rules to not apply'.

It is interesting to see people go from being disoriented to having some traction very quickly as soon as this clue makes things clearer. This is one of the core acts of effective leadership. To sum up a disjointed situation and make it clearer.

Of course the cause of this disorientation is that most people don't contemplate emergencies. They don't understand that disasters and emergencies and tragedies are all part of life. That they are not actually unusual. That preparedness as a concept is not an unusual activity. We buy insurance, we carry raincoats, the car has a spare tire. Having a three-day emergency supply, an effective first-aid kit, an evacuation plan, an emergency meeting location is just a natural continuation of these common sense precautions.

With this mindset there is no need for any great transition between everyday life and a disaster. The emergency is seen as just a natural and expected part of life. an opportunity to bring a different skill set to bear. A shifting of gears. Not a tragically shocking and numbing 'through the looking glass' experience.

I agree Art, and I believe it is because people are resistant to change, and don't want reality to come snapping up at them. When it does, they tend to lock their perspective, making them dysfunctional, until as you say something hits their reset button and they adjust their perspective to suit their new reality.

If you can put people in a survival mode once, get them really immersed in it, then that should be enough to effect a permanent change in their behavior.