Title
Helping behavior in a virtual crisis situation: Effects of safety awareness and crisis communication
Author
Stubbé, H.E.
van Emmerik, M.L.
Kerstholt, J.H.
Publication year
2015
Abstract
Incident evaluations show that bystanders tend to help: they do not wait for professionals to arrive, but act as required by the situation at hand. In the present study, we investigated how safety awareness (induced before an accident happened) and providing a course of action by emergency services affect helping behavior after witnessing a virtual accident with two victims. The main task of the participants was to arrive at a job interview in time. Safety awareness was manipulated by the specific organization they went to: either promoting safe traffic or healthy living. The results show that all participants were inclined to help. Participants who were primed towards safe traffic more often called the emergency number, but talked to the victim less often. Participants who had received specific courses of action moved the victim less often. In all, the results clearly indicate the value of effective risk communication (before an event occurs) and crisis communication (after an event has occurred), as both types of information improve the quality of actual helping behavior at the scene.
Subject
Human & Operational Modelling Life
TPI - Training & Performance Innovations WHC - Work, Health and Care
ELSS - Earth, Life and Social Sciences
Health
Defence, Safety and Security
Crisis communication
Risk communication
Risk awareness
Virtual environment
Helping behavior
To reference this document use:
http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:0fe833e5-f11d-48ea-89c7-f3309cbc83ea
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2015.1071865
TNO identifier
527654
Source
Journal of Risk Research, 20 (4), 433-444
Document type
article