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@ARTICLE{Haghani:866383,
author = {Haghani, Milad and Sarvi, Majid and Shahhoseini, Zahra and
Boltes, Maik},
title = {{D}ynamics of social groups’ decision-making in
evacuations},
journal = {Transportation research / C Emerging technologies Part C},
volume = {104},
issn = {0968-090X},
address = {Amsterdam [u.a.]},
publisher = {Elsevier Science},
reportid = {FZJ-2019-05537},
pages = {135 - 157},
year = {2019},
abstract = {The possible presence of social groups amongst occupants in
indoor evacuation scenarios and the potential discrepancies
between their behaviour and that of single individuals have
been acknowledged in the evacuation dynamics literature.
Yet, empirical studies on the behavioural characteristics of
social-group evacuees, particularly those related to their
decision-making mechanism, are relatively underrepresented.
This study reports on a lab-in-the-field experiment of
evacuations that investigates the effect of group size and
stress level on multiple aspects of groups’ behaviour.
These aspects include pre-movement time, decision time (i.e.
time taken to reach a directional exit decision),
exit-choice behaviour, exit-choice changing and intra-group
decision dynamics. Our main findings showed that:(I) Group
size had a significant effect on pre-movement times and
decision times (and to lesser extent, on evacuation times).
People took longer to initiate their movement or to make a
directional exit decision when in groups compared to when
acting alone. The influence of group size on pre-movement
and decision times, however, was not monotonic. For smaller
group sizes (sizes 2 and 3), pre-movement and decision times
increased with the group size. But for the larger group size
(size 4), the effect was reversed.(II) The exit-choice
mechanism of groups, overall, showed a great degree of
similarity to that of single individuals. This suggests
that, from a modelling perspective, the directional exit
choices of groups could be approximated with the models
obtained from datasets of individually-made choices.(III)
Groups were more likely to revisit and change their initial
exit decisions under the higher level of stress. In
addition, social influence was a major factor in triggering
changes in the exit choices of groups. Nearly $50\%$ of the
changes in group decisions occurred shortly after another
neighbour group changed its exit decision. In other words,
instances of group decision-changing was often followed by
another group taking a similar action.(IV) As to the
within-group dynamics of decision-making, our analyses
suggested that, regardless of the group size, leadership was
the dominant group decision-making mechanism (compared to
the consensus or the conform-to-majority mechanisms). In
nearly $50\%$ of the cases, group decisions were made by one
individual taking the lead and hinting the direction of the
movement to other members of the group.},
cin = {IAS-7},
ddc = {380},
cid = {I:(DE-Juel1)IAS-7-20180321},
pnm = {511 - Computational Science and Mathematical Methods
(POF3-511)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF3-511},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)16},
UT = {WOS:000474317700009},
doi = {10.1016/j.trc.2019.04.029},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/866383},
}