Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of perceived likelihood of escape in simulated panic situation on degree of jam and percentage of group members escaping within a specified time.
In this study, subjects were in emergency where they had to escape within a time (24 seconds) in order to avoid electric shock. In addition to this, subjects were in bottle-neck situation where there was only one outlet through which they were able to escape one at a time. If only one subject pressed the escape switch for 3 seconds, the subject could escape. If, however, two or more subjects pressed the switches, a jam occured. Any subject could not escape while jam continued.
Subjects were 160 male undergraduates, one experimental group was composed of four subjects, and forty groups were employed.
Four conditions were created as following.
(1) High condition (the condition where perceived likelihood of escape was high), (2) Medium condition (the condition where perceived likelihood of escape was medium), (3) Low condition (the condition where perceived likelihood of escape was low) and (4) Control condition. Perceived likelihood of escape were manipulated by the instructions before the trial.
Results were as following.
(1) In the pre-trial questionnaire, it was verified that the smaller the likelihood of escape were instructed by experimenter, the smaller subjects' perceined likelihood of escape were. Degree of jam were the largest in Low condition, and the smallest in High condition. Percentages of subjects escaping were the highest in High condition, and the lowest in Low condition.
(2) In Control condition, perceived likelihood of escape were smaller than in Medium condition, and langer than in Low condition. Degree of jam in Control condition were larger than in Medium condition, and smaller than in Low condition. Percentage of escaping in Control condition were smaller than in Medium condition, and larger than in Low condition.
