1. SFT
  2. Archiwum
  3. Vol. 68
  4. Psychological Determinants of Protect...

Psychological Determinants of Protective Responses Among Mass-Event Participants. Communication, Evacuation and Cooperation in the Safety System

Marta Herbszt-Oleksiuk

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DOI: 10.12845/sft.68.2.2026.4, pages: 62 – 78

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of the article is to organise the knowledge of psychological and social determinants of the protective responses among mass-event participants. The task assumed by the author is to determine how message reception, decision-making, evacuation and cooperation can be integrated into a cohesive framework for the design and evaluation of the safety system. The main questions concern the points at which the protective response may be disrupted and the conditions that facilitate the transition from a threat signal to appropriate action.

Introduction: Safety at a mass event depends not only on infrastructure, procedures and the preparedness of the relevant services, but also on whether its participants: 1) notice and understand the announcement; 2) consider it credible and relevant to their own situation; 3) deem the recommended action as effective and feasible; 4) carry it out under time pressure and in conditions shaped by crowd density and social influence. Knowledge of these processes is scattered across psychology, public health, evacuation research and safety sciences. The article integrates these perspectives, considering the communication, evacuation and cooperation as components of a single process.

Methodology: An integrative literature review with narrative synthesis was conducted. The review covered Polish- and English-language publications from 1955 to 2026. The primary search was conducted in PubMed, supplemented with bibliography analysis, citation tracking, publisher resources, NIST, WHO, “Safety & Fire Technology” and official regulation databases. The selection of sources was purposive and iterative. The analysis covered the type and context of sources, the mechanism, main findings, limitations and the transferability of the conclusions to mass events. The findings were grouped within the areas of communication, evacuation and cooperation to compare the convergences, divergences and boundary conditions. A four-level classification of the directness of the evidence base was applied.

Conclusions: The protective response consists of multiple stages and depends on the interaction of psychological, social, organisational, spatial and temporal factors. The psychological readiness to act is not equivalent to the physical feasibility of action, thus the lack of response should not be automatically interpreted as resistance, irrationality or panic. Communication, infrastructure and staff actions should be planned in an integrated manner, while cooperation among participants may contribute to safety, provided that they have access to reliable information about hazards and appropriate responses. The proposed heuristic framework for the immediate protective response and operational criteria may support the development of messages, documentation, briefings, exercises and audits, but require further field validation during real mass events.

Keywords: cooperation, evacuation, mass events, protective responses, safety communication

Type of article: review article

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