That's interesting.

I suspect that there are a couple of effects. One is, I think a basic instinct to pay close attention to anything around you that might kill you. If there is a tiger in your neighborhood and you see it, you have an urge to keep a close eye on it from a safe distance at all times. You can see cats do this, for instance, if they run across an animal that they have never encountered before.

I think there's also an effect where if a disaster is huge enough, it makes all your own problems tiny by comparison and frees you from them for a while. I used to try this experiment. Suppose someone is unhappy at work. Ask them to imagine a U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser mistakingly launching a Tomahawk cruise missile with the wrong coordinates. Ask them to imagine it getting closer and closer to the Walmart (or wherever they work) and until finally....KABOOM. At the end of this, you will usually see a giant grin on their faces. That would be a tragedy, of course, but it is also makes all the problems with their boss and their co-workers or whatever vanish in their imagination.

Another example of this is the beginning of the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. The story starts off with Arthur Dent being FRANTICALLY worried and upset because his house is going to be demolished to make way for a highway exit ramp. In the middle of this crisis about his house, however, the ENTIRE EARTH IS SUDDENLY DESTROYED. I remember finding this sooo relaxing. Poof. Planet earth and everyone you ever knew and every place you've ever been is suddenly just gone.

- v