Asked what else goes in the 72-hour go-bag, 1,000 UK adults named teddy bears and pet ashes

The two preparedness numbers in this literature answer different questions. After the End counted what people had against the recommended list and found four respondents in 1,000 who reported being fully prepared, which is 0.4% ^[6][17]. The 2025 UK Public Survey of Risk Perception, Resilience and Preparedness asked 10,536 adults how prepared they felt, and 13% said largely or totally ^[8]. The self-rated figure runs about 32 times higher than the item count ^[18], on a sample roughly ten times larger ^[19].

That sentimental finding came from an open question about what else people would take during a crisis ^[9]. One participant wrote: "My childhood teddy bear. He is going to the grave with me. Apart from that, nothing matters much." ^[11] Others named jewelry, family photographs and objects from childhood ^[9]. Pets came up heavily, described as members of the family, and some respondents said they would want the ashes of dead pets with them ^[10]. The authors describe "a surprising number" of people prioritising sentimental belongings but did not give the share of the 1,000 who did ^[12], and the results are not yet published ^[7].

Extended self theory is the explanation the authors reach for: the sense of self is fragile and continually built through our connections with the world, so possessions become part of who we are ^[13]. From there they argue that a stable, coherent identity acts as a psychological anchor and reduces rumination ^[14], and that being able to connect with pre-disaster objects shapes psychological recovery ^[15]. Those two claims come from other research; this survey asked people what they would pack, and did not follow anyone through an evacuation to measure how they coped.

Survivors of the 2011 Japan tsunami frequently described losing family photographs as one of their greatest emotional losses ^[16]. That tells you what hurt; it takes a separate measurement to say whether salvaging the photographs would have changed recovery.

Whether the teddy bear competes with the insulin is the open question. A stated-preference question put in calm conditions tells you what people say there, not what they carry out of the door under a live order, and the survey leaves the 72-hour core of food, water and medicine standing ^[3]. The cheap change is to the list. Documents and cash are already on it ^[3]; photographs, keepsakes and pet arrangements are not, and adding them costs a campaign nothing. I would make that change on the evidence available. The stronger claim, that checklist campaigns underperform because people pack sentimentally, would need a study that records what people actually walk out with.