Experimental Study of the Impact of Personality Traits on Occupant Exit Choice During Building Evacuation

How do evacuees choose egress route and final exit during an emergency evacuation? This is an essential question within which human factors should be taken into account. Human factors, including personality, age and gender, play an important role during an emergency evacuation. Especially, personality trait varies among individuals. This paper focuses on the potential relationship between the occupants’ choice of egress route and final exit and their personality traits (mainly about conscientiousness). We carried out 8 evacuation trials in a school building using a group of students. A survey was conducted to qualitatively analyse the students’ evacuation behavior. A simplified Chinese version of NEO-FFI (Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Five-Factor Inventory) was also used to assess the students’ personality. The results show that: the participants’ choice of classroom exit is unbiased; Conscientiousness influences the way in which students decide their choice of classroom exit. Highly conscientiousness people are more rational when making a decision.