Anne Templeton

University of Edinburgh | UoE · Department of Psychology

Computer simulations are increasingly used to monitor and predict behavior at large crowd events, such as mass gatherings, festivals and evacuations. We critically examine the crowd modeling literature and call for future simulations of crowd behavior to be based more closely on findings from current social psychological research. A systematic revi...

As part of the DCMS Events Research Programme 2021, we surveyed and interviewed attendees of the FA Cup Semi-Final (18th April), Carabao Cup Final (25th April), the FA Cup Final (15th May), the Snooker World Championship (17th April – 3rd May) and Sefton Park music event (2nd May) to examine attendee experiences of the events, perceptions of the CO...

Sustained mass behaviour change is needed to tackle the COVID‐19 pandemic, but many of the required changes run contrary to existing social norms (e.g., physical closeness with in‐group members). This paper explains how social norms and social identities are critical to explaining and changing public behaviour. Recommendations are presented for how...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers of crowd events must facilitate physical distancing in environments where attendees previously enjoyed being close with ingroup members, encourage accurate perception of health risks and close adherence to safety guidance, and stop expected normative behaviors that may now be unsafe. Research from crowd psyc...

Structural inequalities and identity processes are pivotal to understanding public response to COVID-19. We discuss how identity processes can be used to promote community-level support, safe normative behaviour, and increase compliance with guidance. However, we caution how government failure to account for structural inequalities can alienate vul...

Road tunnels are enclosed spaces that most occupants only experience while driving through them. In case of fire, however, occupants potentially need to evacuate on foot from a dangerous and unfamiliar environment. Clear and accurate guidance is important for an efficient and safe evacuation from tunnels. Common cues for evacuation guidance are a s...

Background Over 30,000 people experience out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the United Kingdom annually, with only 7–8% of patients surviving. One of the most effective methods of improving survival outcomes is bystander intervention in the form of calling the emergency services and initiating chest compressions. Additionally, the public must feel e...

Currently there are numerous emergency evacuation simulation tools with varying levels of sophistication and differing capabilities. It is expected that investigating the same scenarios using different tools might not give the same outcome. This paper illustrates how a microscopic agent-based modelling tool (Pathfinder) and a macroscopic flow-based...

People facing threat may evacuate, help others, share information, ignore the threat and the plight of others, or enact a combination of these behaviours. Accurate conceptual models of crowd behaviours must consider why and when these behaviours occur, as well as how people's responses may vary across different scenarios. Researchers have investiga...

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that all emergencies, major incidents and disease outbreaks can have substantial mental health consequences, and it has demonstrated the proven need for additional care for populations in the wake of disasters. This book brings together practice and recent developments in pre-hospital emergency care, emergency medici...

COVID-19 presents unique and complex challenges to the Scottish National Health Service (NHS). As COVID-19 preventative measures are effective at reducing disease spread, promoting staff adherence in high-risk workplaces is vital. The present research explored the role of identity leadership on (a) staff’s appraisals of leadership and (b) staff’s a...

Background: Over 30,000 people experience out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the United Kingdom annually, with only 7-8% of patients surviving. One of the most effective methods of improving survival outcomes is prompt bystander intervention in the form of calling the emergency services and initiating chest compressions, also known as CPR. Additiona...

Highlights: • We created four categories of how information is communicated between agents in state-of-the-art agent-based evacuation models. • We established eight ways that social interactions are implemented in agent-based evacuation models, ranging from low to high social complexity. • We identified the variables commonly used in agent-based...

We consider the problem of categorizing and describing the dynamic properties and behaviours of crowds over time. Previous work has tended to focus on a relatively static "typology"-based approach, which does not account for the fact that crowds can change, often quite rapidly. Moreover, the labels attached to crowd behaviours are often subjective...

Crowd congestion is a common issue at train stations around major sports events, and puts passengers at risk and lowers service quality. Guiding arriving fans along less traveled routes may alleviate congestion. Smartphone apps provide a medium to deliver route suggestions but the messages they provide are pivotal to adherence. We explore how messa...

This briefing document is part of the ESRC-funded project ‘Perceived threats and “stampedes”: a relational model of collective fear responses’ (project reference ES/T007249/1).

The COVID‐19 pandemic poses a substantial risk of disease spread among healthcare workers (HCWs), making it important to understand what impacts perceived risk of COVID‐19 spread in hospital settings and what causes HCWs to mitigate COVID‐19 spread by following COVID‐19 safety measures. One determinant of risk perception and safe behaviors is the i...

The hydraulic model calculates the flow through a door constriction for a unidirectional flow of people primarily based on physical constraints. The method requires the physical door opening width to be reduced by a boundary layer adjustment to determine the effective width. However, the hydraulic model does not provide any guidance on what the flo...

Previous research suggests that shared social identification and expected support from others can reduce the extent to which attendees of mass events perceive that others pose health risks. This study evaluated the social identity processes associated with perceived risk at UK pilot sporting events held during COVID‐19, including the government Eve...

Agent-based models of group behaviour often lack evidence-based psychological reasons for the behaviour. Similarly, pedestrian behaviour models focus on modelling physical movement while ignoring the psychological reasons leading to those movements (or other relevant behaviours). To improve realism, we need to be able to reflect behaviour as a cons...

Closed university buildings proved to be one of the main hot spots for virus transmission during pandemics. As shown during the COVID-19 pandemic, physical distancing is one of the most effective measures to limit such transmission. As universities prepare to manage in-class activities, students’ adherence to physical distancing requirements is a p...

Our project brings together research from crowd psychology and evacuation research to design and build virtual reality experiments that explore crowd responses to perceived threats. This summary outlines some of the main advantages and considerations that we have found when combining our research areas. We discuss novel ways to overcome practical a...

University buildings are significant closed built environments for COVID-19 spreading. As universities prepare to re-start in-class activities, students' adherence to physical distancing requirements is a priority topic. While physical distancing in classrooms can be easily managed, the movement of students inside common spaces can pose higher risk...

To be published in Social and Personality Psychology Compass Abstract Sustained mass behaviour change is needed to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, but many of the required changes run contrary to existing social norms (e.g., physical closeness with ingroup members). This paper explains how social norms and social identities are critical to explaining...

A large-scale field experiment tested psychological interventions to reduce engine idling at long-wait stops. Messages based on theories of normative influence, outcome efficacy, and self-regulation were displayed approaching railway crossing on street poles. Observers coded whether drivers (N = 6,049) turned off their engine while waiting at the r...

Research from crowd psychology and pedestrian dynamics can inform one another to improve understandings and predictions of collective behaviour. In this chapter, we provide an overview of theoretical insights from crowd psychology on intragroup and intergroup behaviour and discuss possible avenues for implementing principles of the social identity...

We surveyed 1,821 spectators attending pilot events in England between 26th July and 3rd October 2020 at basketball, cricket, football, horseracing, rugby and snooker events to identify spectators’ perceptions of large sporting events during the COVID-19 pandemic. All respondents except 3 participated since 26th August, after the UK government allo...

Understanding influences on pedestrian movement is important to accurately simulate crowd behaviour, yet little research has explored the psychological factors that influence interactions between large groups in counterflow scenarios. Research from social psychology has demonstrated that social identities can influence the micro-level pedestrian mo...

In the month approaching the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum, we tested the Identity‐Deprivation‐Efficacy‐Action‐Subjective Well‐Being model using an electorally representative survey of Scottish adults (N = 1,156) to predict voting for independence and subjective well‐being. Based on social identity theory, we hypothesized for voting intenti...

This article presents a glossary of terms that are frequently used in research on human crowds. This topic is inherently multidisciplinary as it includes work in and across computer science, engineering, mathematics, physics, psychology and social science, for example. We do not view the glossary presented here as a collection of finalised and form...

Research in crowd psychology has demonstrated key differences between the behaviour of physical crowds where members are in the same place at the same time, and the collective behaviour of psychological crowds where the entire crowd perceive themselves to be part of the same group through a shared social identity. As yet, no research has investigat...

Around 2 million pilgrims attend the annual Hajj to Mecca and the holy places, which are subject to dense crowding. Both architecture and psychology can be part of disaster risk reduction in relation to crowding, since both can affect the nature of collective behaviour—particularly cooperation—among pilgrims. To date, collective behaviour at the Ha...

Computer simulations are increasingly being used to monitor and predict the movement behavior of crowds. This can enhance crowd safety at large events and transport hubs, and increase efficiency such as capacity utilization in public transport systems. However, the models used are mainly based on video observations, not an understanding of human de...

Constructing nationhood: "citizens of nowhere" vs "#WeAreScotland" - a new post about the use of nationhood by politicians in post-Brexit Britain to reconstruct 'ingroup' and 'outgroup' categories and create norms of helping or prejudice towards migrants. At the Conservative Party conference, in a bid to persuade employers to prioritise hiring Bri...

The phenomenon of Pokémon GO has caused crowds to congregate in areas clutching their phones and shouting about rare Pokémon . Pokémon GO players’ behaviour has been compared to that of zombies , which for those who watch “the Walking Dead” or play “Resident Evil” might be quite frightening. The Swedish police even warn about the game giving “zombi...

Significance Two experiments showed that where there is shared identity with others in a group the disgust experienced at smelling their sweat is significantly attenuated, and willingness to interact with them increased, compared with when the sweat was from an outgroup member or another individual. This difference is explained by the similarity to...

Social scientists have criticised computer models of pedestrian streams for their treatment of psychological crowds as mere aggregations of individuals. Indeed most models for evacuation dynamics use analogies from physics where pedestrians are considered as particles. Although this ensures that the results of the simulation match important physica...

Social scientists have criticised computer models of pedestrian streams for their treatment of psychological crowds as mere aggregations of individuals. Indeed most models for evacuation dynamics use analogies from physics where pedestrians are considered as particles. Although this ensures that the results of the simulation match important physica...

Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Peer-review under responsibility Abstract To monitor and predict the behaviour of a crowd, it is imperative that the technology used is based on an accurate understanding of crowd psychology. However, most sim...