Impact of Social Connections on Evacuation Decisions

A paper written by researchers at the University of South Florida was recently published that analyzed the impact of social connections on people’s decisions to evacuate when ordered to do so during emergencies.  It’s a very interesting study that you can access here.

How Evacuations are Influenced by Social Connections

Many variables play a part in a person’s decision to follow the evacuation directive in the face of an impending disaster.  The researchers studied this interesting dynamic during Hurricane Irma by actually surveying people along the evacuation route, as well as surveying people who decided to stay.

The conclusion of the paper is that people that heeded the advice and evacuated were more likely to have had more and deeper social connections, but the dependability of these connections did not matter.  In other words, the quantity of social connections was important to the decision-making process, but the quality of these connections was not.  This sounds a lot like “social proof” to me.

Obviously, this begs the question of what emergency preparedness professionals can glean from this insight.  In my mind, the main takeaway is that people need to be convinced that evacuation is the correct course of action.

Most people will not take the official directive as gospel without consulting with others.  This implies that any evacuation order should be accompanied by information such as why evacuation is important, the risks of not evacuating, and some raw numbers to highlight the tens of thousands of people that heeded the advice, in order to boost social proof.

In other words, put yourself in the evacuees’ shoes so you can optimize your ability to communicate in a way that resonates with the target audience and enables them to see the information from your perspective.  And of course, this information should be published across all social media channels as frequently as possible, so that the target audience as well as all of their social connections get the message loud and clear.