Work

Walking together: behavioural signatures of psychological crowds

Year: 2018

Type: article

Abstract: crowds where the entire crowd perceive themselves to be part of the same group through a shared social identity. As yet, no research has investigated the behavioural effects that a shared social identity has on crowd movement at a pedestrian level. To investigate the direction and extent to which social identity influences the movement of crowds, 280 trajectories were tracked as participants walked in one of two conditions: (1) a psychological crowd primed to share a social identity; (2) a naturally occurring physical crowd. Behaviour was compared both within and between the conditions. In comparison to the physical crowd, members of the psychological crowd (i) walked slower, (ii) walked further, and (iii) maintained closer proximity. In addition, pedestrians who had to manoeuvre around the psychological crowd behaved differently to pedestrians who had to manoeuvre past the naturally occurring crowd. We conclude that the behavioural differences between physical and psychological crowds must be taken into account when considering crowd behaviour in event safety management and computer models of crowds.

Source: Royal Society Open Science

DOI: 10.1098/rsos.180172

Authors: Anne Templeton, John Drury, Andrew Philippides

Institutions: University of Sussex, University of Kent

Language: English

Topic: Evacuation and Crowd Dynamics

Subfield: Safety Research

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Sustainable cities and communities

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,471