Asteroid 2032 Near-Miss: How the Human Brain Reacts to Global Fear

When Doomsday Nears: The Human Reaction to a Cosmic Threat

Asteroid 2024 YR4, discovered last December, is the size of a large building (estimated 40 to 90 meters wide), speeds at 38,000 miles per hour, and according to calculations, could potentially hit Earth on December 22, 2032. However, the probability of collision is currently negligible. Although initial estimates put the collision risk at over three percent, this figure has been halved after further analysis. Nevertheless, the vision of a celestial impact continues to fire the imagination, even though the asteroid itself is not large enough to cause catastrophic global damage. The fear of a cosmic threat is primal.

Pub or Church? Our Choice in the Face of Fear

Citing NASA’s varying calculations, The Observer posed the question: where would we head if this sizeable rock were inevitably aimed at our location? Referencing a scene from The Simpsons, the weekly paper offered two choices: the pub or the church. How many people, then, would flee the bar for the temple, or vice versa? How many would oscillate between the two? Finally, the question remains: who, if anyone, would be able to maintain self-control in such an extreme situation?

When the Body Controls the Mind: The Pathogenetic Model

The vast majority of literature dedicated to traumatic experiences suggests they will result in symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Psychologists typically apply the pathogenetic model, which links stressful experiences to the development of mental disorders.

This is unsurprising, as extreme situations, due to their unique intensity, elicit a clear, often highly violent, psychological reaction in almost every person. As Professor Bogusław Borys writes, “the spontaneous reaction of most individuals in a situation of sudden, direct life threat is a specific mix of numbness, confusion, shock, withdrawal, the experience of horror, and similar sensations.”

Initial Shock: Why Some Act While Others Freeze

Reactions and capacities for action can vary greatly. After the initial shock, some will do everything to save themselves, while others freeze in motionlessness, thus seemingly separating themselves from the danger. However, neither reaction fully protects against the psychological consequences of the trauma experienced.

Nevertheless, existing research suggests that “an active stance in a person attempting self-rescue reduces the probability of deeper consequences from the incurred psychological injury.”

Why Some Remain Resilient Even in the Face of the End

Conversely, one can refer to the salutogenic model, proposed by Professor Aaron Antonovsky. He did not focus on the factors causing illness; he assumed that since these exist, there must also be factors that strengthen health—and his theory was based on these.

Like all scientists, he noted that stress is unavoidable, but he emphasized that it does not necessarily have an irreversibly negative effect on everyone. The Israeli-American sociologist, while studying Holocaust survivors, asked himself how some of them managed to maintain balanced mental health despite their trauma.

Sense of Coherence: Psychology’s Hidden Weapon

Prof. Antonovsky primarily worked with women, nearly 30% of whom were not impaired by stress despite their wartime experiences. Were they simply “tough” enough not to feel the horror? If so, they would have been treated as clinical cases, as the absence of fear and stress regardless of circumstances is also a mental disorder.

Antonovsky’s salutogenesis, however, emphasizes a person’s Sense of Coherence (SOC). This state is neither common nor simple to achieve; it requires prior preparation, “a deep recourse to one’s own worldview, based on religion, philosophy, and adopted life values.”

Thus, as Professor Borys notes, “the salutogenic approach focuses on strengthening resources and assets that help people cope with adversity, promote well-being, and flourish.”

What Allows Us to Survive the Worst Moments?

It is through this attitude that effective mutual support can be provided among those affected by trauma. Moreover, by perceiving stress as an internally coherent whole, it can be understood, and consequently, somewhat mastered and controlled. This helps not only in surviving a traumatic situation but also in building self-efficacy for coping with it in the future. This makes it easier to face even the most difficult challenges that the human psyche encounters, regardless of whether the cosmic threat is real or perceived.

When the Brain Prioritises Survival Over Humanity

Today, living in a “culture of fear,” where the media dictates what we should be afraid of, we often fear statistically harmless things that stimulate the imagination—such as plane crashes, shark attacks, or the aforementioned asteroid collision. However, this fear is often occasional, triggered while reading an article or watching a disaster movie. On a daily basis, we believe that things will continue as they always have.

Most of us manage ordinary daily troubles, such as workplace misunderstandings, and even major life changes, such as a career shift. The real test comes with extreme situations that determine our life or death.

Why Do Empathy and Logic Vanish in Crisis?

A severe illness or an imminent catastrophe awakens a natural, all-encompassing fear, putting us into fight, flight, or freeze mode. It is precisely then that, in most cases, the brain switches off all higher functions of the prefrontal cortex to conserve energy. Reflective and creative thinking, empathy, self-control, willpower, and patience towards others cease to function.

Disaster on Screen: A Mirror of Our Fears

An asteroid inevitably hurtling towards us day after day is a symbolic cosmic threat that can prompt us to consider what choice we would make, and whether we would be capable of making one at all in that critical moment.

Adam McKay tackled just such a catastrophic theme—an immense comet flying straight toward the Earth’s destruction—in his film Don’t Look Up. In one of the final scenes, just before the cataclysm, we see two models of behaviour. On one side, in an empty bar, against the backdrop of panicked passers-by, sits a pair of jaded television presenters. Neither has close relationships with anyone, and they are only connected by work and a childish sense of humour. In their last moments, only two possibilities occur to them: to have sex or to get drunk.

And You? How Would You Truly React?

On the other side, we see the protagonists who tried to warn humanity of the danger. They also must cope with the expectation of the inevitable end, but they do so at home, with family and friends. With clear consciences, after a prayer, they sit down to a communal dinner and talk as if everything would continue as normal.

Which attitude would most of us adopt?

Read the original article in Polish: Asteroida zbliża się do Ziemi. Jak zachowałbyś się w chwili apokalipsy?