Normalcy bias Ostrich effect

Overcome Your Normalcy Bias

Normalcy bias can be dangerous, and most everyone has it to one extent or another. You might say it is somewhat normal to have normalcy bias. But here’s why you should do your best to overcome it…

What is normalcy bias?

Normalcy bias is a mental state people enter when facing the possibility of a crisis or disaster. Because it has never happened before (to them) it is assumed that it never will.

A cognitive bias which leads people to disbelieve or minimize threat warnings. Consequently, individuals underestimate the likelihood of a disaster, when it might affect them, and its potential adverse effects.

The normalcy bias causes many people to not adequately prepare for natural disasters, market crashes, and calamities caused by human error.

About 70% of people reportedly display normalcy bias during a disaster.

~ Wikipedia

It causes people to underestimate the possibility of a disaster occurring, and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster.

The assumption that is made… Since a disaster has never occurred / affected their life, then it never will occur.

It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it does occur. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before.

People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible. Convincing themselves that it is a less serious situation. Therefore, they think that everything will be all right.

Ostrich Effect

It is similar to the Ostrich effect, the avoidance of accepting risks by pretending they do not exist. The Ostrich effect comes from the common legend that ostriches bury their heads in the sand to avoid danger.

Normalcy Bias Hinders Preparedness

Having a strong normalcy bias will prevent someone from preparing or planning for a disaster.

Perhaps the very first survival skill that someone can have is that of eliminating their normalcy bias; the realization that things can change, and change rapidly. It is quite nearly impossible to think about, or plan for disaster, if your mind cannot accept that it could actually happen.

People are creatures of habit. We go to work the same way every day. Our routines are nearly the same (the weekday routine and the weekend routine). We tend to do everything the same, or similar way we did the last time. Think about the things that you do in your life in a given week… Most of you do the same things from week to week, even with the same schedule. Year in and year out…

It goes against the grain to think or act beyond our ‘normalcy’. I can tell you though, that once you take the ‘red pill’ (Matrix reference) and break through that old way of thinking, it is exciting (and can be a bit scary) to see what you will see, sometimes outside of your comfort zone.

It is only then that you can truly begin to realize what is happening outside of your bubble, as well as the risks (and opportunities) that are present there.

[ Read: Path Of Least Resistance – Go With It, Or Overcome Your Comfort Zone]

14 Comments

  1. Reminds me of when I was a teenager back in the 50s, in Massachusetts.
    Back then, people that ran in the Boston Marathon, and there were not that many, were considered ‘oddballs’, not normal people, and often the butt of jokes. Who in their right mind would want to run that distance, why, and for what ?
    Today, thousands run, and it’s a huge, major event.
    If you’re not with the crowd – you’re considered ‘not normal’.
    Peer Pressure.

  2. There are three types of people in the world.
    1. Those that make things happen.
    2. Those that watch things happen.
    3. Those that ask “what just happened?”

  3. Matthew 10:14
    “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city shake off the dust of your feet…….. Love my oldest, but he shall have to live with his deaf ears.

  4. The result of Normalcy Bias will eventually be a culling. It will be horrific. But, if you practice situational awareness in your daily lives and are truly preparing for hard times, you will see what I mean. Go to any Wal Mart or any shopping mall and perceive the “Walking Dead” around you: Shambling, texting, slack-jawed, mouth-breathing, brain-dead, vaping Mall Zombies. They have absolutely no clue. And, they breed more of their own kind.
    You Tube posted videos about this over ten years ago and titled them: THE MADNESS OF A LOST SOCIETY. Watch them. Also, check out Stephen Cutts- THIS IS US. Hard times are not coming. They are here. Ignore the Leviathan-worshipping useful idiots, “vaccine” acolytes, and others encroaching on your God-given liberties. Keep prepping, keep silent, and stay vigilant. Bleib ubrig.

  5. I tried to talk to the younger guys at work about what is coming and all I got was “your a conspiracy theorist”, your wrong, you don’t know what your talking about, your “OLD SCHOOL” times have changed, I’m not gonna listen to you!

  6. I’m guessing the US military is trying to decide which high heels, purses and protest signs to use to chase the single gender, overly masculine male Chinese soldiers away from Taiwan. Or maybe they will just threaten to unfriend them on FB and suspend the soldiers tic tok accounts…….America has a reckoning coming very soon and it will be on a Biblical scale.

  7. OH,
    Perhaps this is tied into the sub that had an unexplained run-in with something or another in the So Ch Sea, leaving 11 aboard injured?

  8. It was not long ago, that many thought we could just sit back with our popcorn, watch the turmoil, and not become engaged.

    But the Marxist/socialist/communist MINORITY have been smarter than most citizens. They have slithered in right under our noses while we slept.

    “There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.”

    Many dictators have focused on getting the youth – it is working now. RIP USA.

  9. Man, I just know I’m gonna come off as a Pollyanna but here goes…. it sounds like some of yall have been doing this a long time. I can understand being frustrated. I too have had family members tell me “if things get that bad we’ll just come to your house ” and then had to make it clear to them it doesnt work that way. But, I refuse to give up hope.

    I also used to go along to get along. Working, mommy duties, soccer games and birthday parties. I had my wake up call though and that was hurricane Katrina. That sh#t show scared me enough to change my ways. To acknowledge the dangers and begin learning to face them.

    Yall must have had that moment at some point too. Here you are. The way folks arrive here is almost irrelevant but the modern push for organic, farm to table food is one. The supply chain issues we’ve all faced since covid hit is another.

    I see people coming around to our way of thinking that I never would have imagined would be willing to even consider my side of the argument before. Not everybody, no and that’s a shame, but anytime somebody asks I’m willing to share what I know to point them in the right direction.

    I know right now that for some of you discretion, flying under the radar, whatever you want to call it, is of upmost importance but please don’t forget that you were once what they were. Some of them can change. You did.

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