First of all, that guy is an idiot. What those mobs of people are experiencing is very similar to bubble psychology – which is a mass delusion where emotion overruns logic. People in crowds tend to mirror emotion of other people in crowds due to mirror neurons – and in todays information society that irrationality can be transfered quickly and to millions. It has nothing to do with “survival instincts”. Sure, people, if removed from the means of survival or perceived removal will change behavior for survival which could manifest in a myriad of ways. For the most part you will not see shopping frenzies in Ecuador or Cambodia because the mass psychological conditioning is not there. Those people are products of conditioning coupled with soft-wried ‘mirroring’ brain chemistry culminating to what took place in the video .
Actually, during crises people tend to increase cooperation and empathy because that is how people are wired. With the exception of a few bad apples that act like sociopaths.
