The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 1 - 67
Residence Hall Inhabitants' Responses to Fire Alarms
alarm (Mann-Whitney U = 1163.0, p <.0001)
and going back to their room (Mann-Whitney
U = 1113.0, p <.0001), and gave significantly
lower ratings to the behavior of trying to exit
immediately (Mann-Whitney U = 1552.5, p
<.003), compared to participants who had
never previously failed to evacuate in response
to a fire alarm. Table 3 shows the mean ratings
given for the likelihood of engaging in the different behaviors in response to a fire alarm,
broken down by whether or not participants
had failed to evacuate in response to a prior
alarm. It is also important to note that 51%
of participants rated themselves as likely to
survey the situation, and 71.7% of participants
rated themselves as likely to join a group.
DISCUSSION
This exploratory study details one of the first
social-psychological approaches to measuring college students' responses to fire alarms.
Results raise concerns for the safety of stu-
dents in residence hall housing, and suggest
that social-psychological pressures could delay
evacuation times. Specifically, only 45% of participants correctly knew that a fire becomes
dangerous within the first 3 minutes after an
alarm sounds, and a quarter of respondents
admitted to ignoring prior fire alarms and
staying in their rooms.
When presented with the fire scenario,
participants who indicated they had previously
ignored fire alarms were more likely to report
that they would ignore the alarm, and were less
likely to indicate that they would exit immediately. This potential delay in evacuating could
not only impact their own well-being in the
case of a true fire emergency, but also the survival of others through pluralistic ignorance.
Many participants indicated that upon hearing
a fire alarm, they would take time to survey
the situation and look to join a group. If they
notice others ignoring the alarm and returning to rooms, people who are initially unsure
Table 3
Participants' Ratings of Different Responses to a Fire Alarm
Previously failed to evacuate
in response to an alarm
Response
Have not failed to evacuate in
response to an alarm
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Take time to survey the situation
3.39
1.10
3.09
1.12
Join a group
3.87
.94
3.78
.96
Try to ignore the alarm*
2.24
.91
1.50
.63
Try to go back to my room*
2.49
.96
1.66
.76
Try to exit immediately*
3.50
1.01
4.03
.85
Note: * indicates a significant difference (p < .05) between the groups
Ratings made on a 1 to 5 scale, with 1 indicating highly unlikely and 5 indicating highly likely.
V O L U M E 4 3 , NO. 1 * 2 0 1 6
67
The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 1
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 1
Contents
The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 1 - Intro
The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 1 - Cover1
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