Abstract
Social information use is common in a wide range of group-living animals, notably in humans. The role it plays in decision-making could be a key to understanding how social groups make collective decisions. The observation of road-crossing behaviours in the presence of other individuals is an ideal means to study the influence of social information on decision-making. This study investigated the influence of culture on social information used by pedestrians in a potentially dangerous scenario, namely road crossing. We scored the collective crossing of pedestrians at four locations in Nagoya (Japan) and three locations in Strasbourg (France). French pedestrians cross against the lights much more often (41.9%) than Japanese ones (2.1%). Individuals deciding to cross the road were strongly influenced by the behaviour and the presence of other pedestrians, especially in Japan, where a stronger conformism was noted. However, Japanese pedestrians were half as likely to be influenced by social information as their French counterparts when crossing at the red light, as they were more respectful of rules. Men show riskier behaviour than women (40.6% versus 25.7% of rule-breaking, respectively), deciding quickly and setting off earlier than women. Further related studies could help target specific preventive, culture-specific solutions for pedestrian safety.
Highlights
The acquiring of information by animals, including human beings, should result in a decision that is as optimal as possible and ensure that the fitness of individuals either increases or remains stable
Individuals may use inadvertent social information such as age [6,7] or speed [8] to identify the more performant individuals and follow them. This social information transmission can lead to contagious and collective behaviours such as those observed in human crowds and pedestrian traffic [9,10]
We found that the light colour is the main factor influencing the crossing behaviours of pedestrians, closely followed by the departure order and the country of pedestrians
Summary
The acquiring of information by animals, including human beings, should result in a decision that is as optimal as possible and ensure that the fitness of individuals either increases or remains stable. The information an individual obtains from its environment can be social or non-social (i.e. gained from personal observations). Social information can be produced advertently (a signal) or inadvertently (a cue), and its use might allow individuals to adapt to their environment faster and/or better than when collecting personal information alone [3]. Individuals may use inadvertent social information such as age [6,7] or speed [8] to identify the more performant individuals and follow them. This social information transmission can lead to contagious and collective behaviours such as those observed in human crowds and pedestrian traffic [9,10]
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