British passengers of the ill-fated liner Titanic lost their opportunity to survive to pushy American fellow travellers due to the social norms of polite behaviour that bound them, a recent study said.

Decision-making in life and death situations and how extreme risk and shock affects social norms are the main topics of the study by economist David Savage from Queensland University of Technology.

He says even with one’s life is at stake, people generally don’t drop socially-approved behaviour in favour of more beneficial, but shunned, self-interest. He analysed the results of Titanic disaster where people had to either secure a place at the scarce lifeboats or die.

Vladimir Kremlev for RT. Click to enlarge.

“We observe that social norms such as ‘women and children first’ are surviving in such external situations that create life and death situations,” Savage said, explaining that being a women on the doomed vessel increased the probability of survival by up to 53 percent, as many women and almost all children survived in the disaster.

Just having a child on your hands had a robust impact on the chances to save one’s life, irrelevant of the gender.

The study also suggests British passengers were politely queuing to get their place on a lifeboat, and on many occasions allowed others to take their place. Americans, who were not used to this etiquette, had no problem seizing their chance of survival, the data indicates.

Savage concludes that altruism and social norms play the central part in situations of life and death, and while people tend to exploit their advantages, they don’t revert to ‘survival of the fittest’ behaviour.