Modern behavioral scientists will tell you that, although we assume that people go about their lives taking second by second decisions they are usually following a pattern based on the "role" they are performing, it's as if they are following a script they have memorised.
Problems arrise when they encounter an unexpected situation which their "role" cannot accommodate. As an example, consider a person doing their weekly shopping at a supermarket and the fire alarm sounds. They find it very hard to give up the role of being a shopper and take on the role of saving their own life and sometimes leave it to late.
People who have learned a role which involves reacting to emergencies, such as a casualty ward nurse or a police officer, react well to such situations because they are like an actor with two characters to play and are able to "switch roles" quickly. On the other hand the reaction of most shoppers to a fire alarm is to carry on being a shopper for a considerable time. Many people die in fires because the instinct to continue acting out their role does not allow them to react quickly enough to the new situation and unfortunatelty some of them die because of it.
If, for example, an accountant in a factory is given training as a fire warden, he will quickly change roles if an alarm sounds. If other employees are asked to particupate in fire "drills" they too will develop the capacity to change rolls in the event of a fire. This is not something that people do naturally, they have to be taught it just like an actor has to learn a new script.
Shakespear understood that people act out their lives in a series of roles rather than making decisions about what to do on a second by second basis. He also added over one hundred new words to the English language.Quite a clever fellow!
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