It's all in the reflexes.

The point is valid: the difference between survival and wipe-out in a physical crisis is nearly always a matter of conditioned reflexes.

Sauve qui peut. To survive
we’d all turn thief

and rascal, or so says the fox,
with her coat of an elegant scoundrel,
her white knife of a smile,
who knows just where she’s going:

to steal something
that doesn’t belong to her -
some chicken, or one more chance,
or other life.

The suit came up, and Holston thought that maybe people went along with it because they couldn't believe it was happening. None of it was real enough to rebel against. The animal part of his mind wasn't made for this, to be calmly ushered to a death it was perfectly aware of.

We're all born with the survival instinct. But I think the true survivors, who get out of really bad situations, are ones who have lived in a certain way that directs them towards survival,

Hey, this has been said before over the past century or so. But there's a survival instinct going on that is demonstrated on a small scale here.