1. Social Roles
"Social roles" refers to the tendency of people to behave in a manner that is consistent with other
persons' expectations for someone in their position. In a work setting, certain behaviors are
expected from supervisors, and different behaviors are expected from their subordinates. These
social roles have been shown to carry over to fire emergencies, and strongly influence behavior.
Altruism is the tendency for people to help other people, even strangers, while assuming greater
risk to themselves. Altruism is common during fire emergencies.
Leadership roles are important. For example, there have been reports of building occupants not
paying much attention to clerical persons appointed to emergency management roles like floor
warden.
Gender also influences behavior. Some examples:
• Men are more likely than women to investigate ambiguous signs of a fire and to fight a
fire.
• Women are more likely than men to evacuate earlier and to warn others.
Emotions and Stress
Fire emergencies are stressful events. Danger is not the only source of stress, so is the ambiguity
that often accompanies an emergency.
Richard Lazarus, a psychology professor, has developed a "model of cognitive appraisal" that
is useful for explaining the importance of emotions in taking effective actions. In this model,
there are two questions that a person asks in stressful situations:
1. Am I in danger? The need to answer this questions helps explain why people delay their
response to alarm signals. The perception of danger depends on people's situation
awareness.
2. How can I cope with the threat? Importantly, this second question involves two different
mental processes:
a. Problem solving coping; and,
b. Emotion-focused coping.
The importance of problem solving coping is apparent; someone in danger has to figure out how
to cope with the threat. But emotion-focused coping is also very important, because the response
to threat (anxiety and fear) can interfere with task performance. (While it is possible for extreme
fear to cause panic in some people, the instances of such behaviors seem to be very rare.)