How occupants respond to building emergencies: A systematic review of behavioral characteristics and behavioral theories

Understanding human behavior in building emergencies can benefit a wide spectrum of applications, which can ultimately contribute to the improvement of human safety in buildings, and potentially benefit outdoor emergency responses as well. This paper presents a holistic review of prior studies on occupant behavior during building emergencies, with a focus on important behavioral characteristics and explanatory behavioral theories. Based on a search in major databases, the authors identified a total of 164 relevant articles, dating back to the early days of this research area. These articles were reviewed and analyzed in detail to synthesize existing knowledge, particularly regarding the characteristics of various human behaviors in different building emergency contexts, and social and psychological theories that have been referenced to explain these behaviors and associated underlying cognitive and behavioral processes. Based on this review, research gaps, current research trends and directions for future research were also discussed. The review reveals that occupants' wayfinding behavior (i.e. moving towards a safe destination) in building fires has been the focus of prior research, while other types of behavior in response to different types of building emergencies have generally been understudied. Existing research methods in this area have their respective pros and cons, and usages of different methods have been evolving over time. The review also shows that different theories have been referenced ad hoc to explain different behaviors separately, and a holistic framework that incorporates all cognitive and behavioral processes of human involved in the entire building emergency response process could be valuable.