Titanic vs. Lusitania

This is pretty interesting. A team of behavioral economists compared the survival rates for the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 (iceberg) and the Lusitania in 1915 (torpedo).

In the case of the Titanic women, children, and the upper classes had a relative survival advantage.

In the case of the Lusitania it was young males who survived at better than average rates.

The conclusion is as follows:

“The Lusitania slipped below the waves a scant 18 min. after the German torpedo hit it. The Titanic stayed afloat for 2 hr. 40 min. — and human behavior differed accordingly. On the Lusitania, the authors of the new paper wrote, ‘the short-run flight impulse dominated behavior. On the slowly sinking Titanic, there was time for socially determined behavioral patterns to reemerge.'”