The research of human individual’s conformity behavior in emergency situations

Purpose

The purpose of this paper (including three studies) is to investigate the idea that individuals in an emergency situation experience significantly a higher level of emotional activation, lower performance of task, and change in decision making, escaping behavior and conformity as compared to being in a non-emergency situation. It is also suggested that the level of emotional activation mediates the association between situation and the performance of task.

Design/methodology/approach

Study 1 was an experimental study with 43 university students and revealed that different situations induced different levels of emotional activation and they are positively and significantly related. Study 2 was a further exploration of study 1, in which 49 participants were asked to watch a recomposed video telling a reasonable story about escaping from the emergency and complete several tasks associated with two kinds of situations (non-emergency vs emergency). In study 3, 168 participants, randomly assigned to three groups, were asked to work on judgment tasks with different numbers of options.

Findings

Results revealed that individuals in an emergency situation experience significantly lower performance of task and higher conformity tendency than in a non-emergency situation. Also, the causal effect of the situation on the performance of task is mediated by the level of emotional activation. Moreover, results found that the performance of task is also a mediator between the level of emotional activation and conformity. Result showed that the number of choices is negatively related to conformity, and performance is a mediator between the number of choices and conformity.

Originality/value

This paper suggested that the level of emotional activation mediates the association between situation and the performance of task.

Perception of Emotional Expressions in Adults

Abstract. Past research suggests that transient mood influences the perception of facial expressions of emotion, but relatively little is known about how trait-level emotionality (i.e., temperament) may influence emotion perception or interact with mood in this process. Consequently, we extended earlier work by examining how temperamental dimensions of negative emotionality and extraversion were associated with the perception accuracy and perceived intensity of three basic emotions and how the trait-level temperamental effect interacted with state-level self-reported mood in a sample of 88 adults (27 men, 18–51 years of age). The results indicated that higher levels of negative mood were associated with higher perception accuracy of angry and sad facial expressions, and higher levels of perceived intensity of anger. For perceived intensity of sadness, negative mood was associated with lower levels of perceived intensity, whereas negative emotionality was associated with higher levels of perceived intensity of sadness. Overall, our findings added to the limited literature on adult temperament and emotion perception.