Cultural propaganda’s purpose involves advancing educational activities. These activities are designed to update residents’ awareness, beliefs, and behavioral patterns concerning disaster prevention and mitigation, thereby cultivating spontaneous emergency response actions in the populace. Previous research has identified education, behavioral demonstration, and social support as critical strategies that effectively influence the emergency behavior of residents (34). Academically, education has the potential to strengthen both human capital and social capital; in fact, studies suggest a correlation where higher educational attainment is associated with increased engagement in collective activities (35). In addition, knowledge dissemination, the enhancement of individual moral and cognitive capabilities, and the cultivation of compliance with social norms can be achieved through educational interventions (36). These collective insights illustrate the capacity of cultural propaganda to elevate residents’ emergency awareness. It can also impart practical safety knowledge and skills, strengthen community cohesion, and finally equip individuals to implement effective emergency measures when crises occur.

The concept of an open information environment refers to the capacity of community systems or information flows. This capacity involves the reliable and effective transmission of accurate information, even when facing external disturbances, natural disasters, or other challenges (37). Findings from research studies exhibit that a significant rise in media coverage frequency often aligns with a corresponding reduction in disease incidence. For instance, if the volume of reporting multiplies tenfold, the quantity of disease infections can decline by one-third (38). The dissemination of disaster-related information, therefore, significantly affects public behavior and the decision-making processes regarding potential risks (39).

Essential elements that guarantee the stability and resilience of organizational systems in a community define basic community emergency infrastructure; such infrastructure enables organizations to mount effective responses during emergencies. Various factors, as indicated by research findings, exhibit a positive correlation with community resilience, including technical variables, organizational variables, management variables, and prevailing community environmental conditions. More specifically, improvements in community resilience are advanced by technical enhancement, robust organizational construction, effective management planning capabilities, and overall environmental stability (40). Moreover, communities are empowered to make superior decisions and react more swiftly to emergencies through the establishment of strong infrastructure designed to address natural and man-made disasters, coupled with the ongoing maintenance and updating of these critical systems (41). The improvement of community environments, therefore, proves beneficial for enhancing residents’ behaviors that are oriented towards emergency response.

Based upon the preceding analysis, it can be understood that scientific-educational strategies, a consistently stable information public environment, alongside well-established emergency infrastructure and organizational systems, are capable of enhancing residents’ emergency awareness and their self-help capabilities. These enhancements offer crucial support for their effective actions during emergency situations. Therefore, this study proposes the following research hypotheses:

A close relationship is present between the emergency awareness of residents and their emergency behavior. In this study, emergency awareness signifies an individual’s particular understanding of their physical sensations, psychological experiences, and cognitive activities when in a disaster situation, concurrent with their perception of external stimuli associated with disasters (42). Both this awareness of disaster risks and the awareness of appropriate disaster responses significantly shape residents’ involvement in activities focused on disaster reduction and relief (43). Insufficient emergency awareness, as research findings suggest, stands as a primary factor for individuals choosing not to participate in emergency drills (44). Besides, a foundational contribution to the formation of residents’ behavior comes from a well-established emergency awareness system, while the early cultivation of crisis consciousness tends to promote more consistent long-term participation in emergency training, campaigns, and drills.

Emergency emotion describes a rational emotional state defined by being positive, proactive, and calm. To a certain degree, emergency emotions can prompt the occurrence of emergency behaviors. According to classical high-stakes emotion theory, how individuals behave in emergencies frequently represents an immediate reaction to these experienced emotions (32). In production safety, employees’ unsafe behaviors are significantly affected by emotions; this effect is, accordingly, moderated by group behavior norms and individual control mechanisms (45). In business operation, the psychological dynamic response mechanism for how individuals react to relevant events, actions, or experiences at work is jointly formed by both cognition and emotion. A unique contribution to the depletion of energy resources is made by both negative emotional events and the regulation of these events, often resulting in fatigue, exhaustion, or negative affect (46). Fatigue or emotional exhaustion also increases the probability of dangerous behaviors (47). Accordingly, this study hypothesizes that maintaining a calm and rational emotional state is indispensable for an effective response to disaster events.

Emergency knowledge and skills reflect the set of knowledge and skills that an individual must have to protect themselves and others when a disaster occurs. Academic communities have yet to arrive at a unified agreement concerning the conceptualization and measurement of residents’ emergency competence. The belief held by some scholars is that residents primarily acquire emergency competence through avenues such as knowledge accumulation, propaganda-based education, and practical skill training, among other methods (48). The degree to which residents are equipped with emergency knowledge and skills has a direct bearing on the effectiveness of their emergency behaviors. During emergencies, individuals with high levels of emergency knowledge alongside expertise in relevant skills demonstrate a greater capacity for the rapid identification of dangers and for rendering assistance to themselves or to others.

The aforementioned analysis evidently indicates that factors including emergency awareness, emotional states experienced during emergencies, and the knowledge and skills relevant to emergencies, can potentially affect an individual’s rational judgment. Resultingly, it affects their emergency behavior. Therefore, three hypotheses, which are according to these identified individual emergency cognitions, are proposed by this study:

Related studies in social psychology exhibit that disaster experiences can alter an individual’s experiential cognition. This change frequently leads to heterogeneous risk perceptions and also has the potential to impact decision-making processes (49). According to this understanding, this research evaluates how disaster experiences moderate the relationship between individuals’ emergency cognition, the community disaster mitigation environment, and emergency behavior.

The moderating effect of disaster experiences indicates itself primarily in three key ways. Firstly, residents’ awareness regarding disaster prevention and mitigation, along with their motivation to act, can be significantly strengthened through such experiences. Typically, disaster experiences noticeably enhance an individual’s sensitivity to risk, prompting them to strengthen their understanding of disaster risks through firsthand encounters (50). Moreover, these experiences may genuinely spur psychological transformation, which boosts the drive to aid other vulnerable community members and to participate more proactively in disaster prevention and mitigation efforts (51). Disaster experiences also equip individuals with the ability to accumulate adaptive experience for emergency situations, thereby lessening the negative emotional effects on their actions (52). Secondly, disasters present opportunities for residents to forge connections and strengthen community resilience. The shared empathetic experience during a disaster, alongside a sense of “common sentiment” that cultivates social cohesion rooted in a collective fate, can cultivate deeper interpersonal relationships and encourage mutual support when disasters strike (53). Finally, through the accumulation of personal encounters, disaster experiences can enable residents to develop local knowledge, empowering them to identify and address disaster risks more effectively (54). Individuals can progressively establish a stable reserve of emergency-related knowledge by engaging in reconstruction activities throughout the disaster recovery period (55). This analysis leads the study to put forth the following hypotheses:

Consequently, using the analyses above as a basis, we created the research framework shown in Figure 1.

This study proceeds to appraise the ways community disaster mitigation environments and individual emergency cognition affect the emergency behavior of residents. To fulfill this objective, the following metric models were developed: (1) SHT i = α 1 + β 1 CME i + γ 1 ICE i + δ 1 control i + ε i (2) MAT i = α 2 + β 2 CME i + γ 2 ICE i + δ 2 control i + ε i where SHT i and MAT i represent the self-help and mutual aid emergency behaviors exhibited by the i^th resident; CME i denotes the community disaster mitigation environment perceived by the i^th resident; ICE i refers to the individual emergency cognition of the i^th resident; control i includes control variables such as gender, occupation, educational level, etc., for the i^th resident; ε i expresses the random error term.

This study further analyzes the moderating effects of disaster experiences on the relationships between community disaster mitigation environments and individual emergency cognition with residents’ emergency behavior. Therefore, the following interactive regression model is derived: (3) EB i = α 3 + β 3 CME i + γ 3 ICE i + φ 3 DE i + σ 3 CME i × DE i + ω 3 ICE i × DE i + δ 3 control i + ε i where EB i refers to the individual emergency behavior of the i^th resident; DE i denotes the disaster experience of the i^th resident; CME i × DE i and ICE i × DE i represent the interactive terms between community disaster mitigation environment and disaster experience, and between individual emergency cognition and disaster experience, respectively. These interactions are employed specifically to test the moderating effects of disaster experiences on such relationships.

This study involves the design of a survey instrument using scales. It measures the dependent and independent variables through a five-point Likert scale (1 meant “highly disagree”, 2 meant “disagree”, 3 meant “neutral”, 4 meant “relative agree” and 5 meant “highly agree”) and measures the moderating variable through a summated rating scale (1 meant “yes”, 2 meant “no”). And the content of the survey is organized into two sections. The first section collects fundamental information from participants, including demographic indicators associated with population statistics. For the second section, the items are initially designed by incorporating relevant existing research on variables, and are finally developed by refining them according to the opinions of emergency experts and scholars. Here, the scale for individual emergency cognition covers dimensions such as emergency awareness (42), emergency emotion (56), emergency knowledge and skills (57); higher scores obtained on this scale reflect a greater level of residents’ emergency cognitive capabilities. Internal consistency reliability figures (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients) for the overall scale and its sub-scales are 0.810, 0.798, 0.753, and 0.820, respectively. The community disaster mitigation environment structured around three dimensions: basic emergency response infrastructure (58), information publicization (59), and cultural propaganda (60), with higher scores indicating a higher level of community disaster reduction environmental support. For this total scale and its sub-scales, the internal consistency reliability values are 0.899, 0.830, 0.793, and 0.842, respectively.

The self-help emergency behavior includes information-seeking behavior (61) and disaster preparedness behavior (62), with internal consistency reliability of 0.819, 0.799, and 0.790 for the total scale and sub-scales, respectively. The mutual aid emergency behavior consists of mutual rescue behavior (63) and participation in community emergency drills (64), with internal consistency reliability of 0.741, 0.821, and 0.840, respectively. The higher the score, the higher the corresponding behavioral level of individuals. Whether the community had encountered any sudden disaster events in the 2 years prior is the indicator for disaster experience (65). The reliability and the credibility of the questionnaires satisfied the criteria: the total Cronbach’s alpha of the data was 0.913, and the Cronbach’s alpha value of each question item exceeded 0.7. Strong questionnaire reliability was indicated by the KMO value (0.943) and the p-value, which suggested significance at the 1% level. Table 2 presents the definitions and statistical descriptions for all variables and indicators.

The data underpinning this study were collected through a survey. This survey was administered by China University of Mining and Technology in July 2024 and was a component of the “Hundreds of Communities Survey” focused on emergency management in China. Considering the population scale, economic development level, and practical operability of survey accessibility factors, this study selected 27 provincial capital cities, 4 municipalities, and 5 special planned cities to conduct the investigation. Provincial capital cities and municipalities are representative and comprehensive, covering all provincial administrative units in the Chinese mainland, while directly reflecting the implementation effects of emergency policies in each province. Additionally, special planned cities, due to their special economic characteristics and the background of reform pilot projects, may exhibit distinct emergency behaviors among residents that deserve special attention. The representativeness and coverage of the data ensure the national applicability and broad relevance of the research results. The offline survey adopted a multi-stage random sampling method, four subdistricts were randomly selected in each city, and two communities were randomly selected in each subdistrict.

During the process of offline community surveys, investigators obtained a list of long-term residents in the community from local community leaders. For each list, 25 households were randomly selected, and one person was chosen from each household as the subject for face-to-face questionnaire surveys. This approach ensured the collection of the most authentic thoughts from respondents and eliminated the influence of tourists and other non-local residents on the survey results. Additionally, all sample data collection was conducted under the supervision of investigators to ensure interviews were completed and returned with high accuracy and quality. A total of 7,127 questionnaires were collected in this survey. After excluding questionnaires that were incomplete or incorrectly filled out, 6,817 valid questionnaires remained, which signifies a response rate of 95.65%. Participants had been provided with clear and comprehensive information about the purpose of our study, the nature of the questions, and how their responses would be used. It is important to note that, due to privacy considerations, the study did not collect data concerning individuals’ mental health or other substance use. All participants’ responses had been treated as confidential and would not be disclosed to third parties.

Our sample analysis sourced data from the valid questionnaires. Table 3 presents that male and female respondents were represented in nearly equal numbers. When analyzing educational backgrounds, individuals with university qualifications comprised the largest segment, accounting for 48.58%; the sample also included participants from various other educational tiers. The occupational data indicated that enterprise employees, retired persons, civil servants, and freelance workers formed a relatively large proportion. Meanwhile, the respondent pool comprised a range of other roles, including different civil service positions, unemployed individuals, and students. Regarding age distribution, the 30–44 age bracket was the most numerous at 33.77%, whereas the smallest cohort consisted of older adult individuals (60 years and older) at 15.71% of the sample.

Statistical methods were employed to analyze questionnaires responses. Figure 2 presents the findings related to behavioral decision-making. These results exhibit penetration rates exceeding 53% for both categories of emergency behavior, indicating significant behavioral tendencies toward these activities. In comparison, residents demonstrated a low willingness for community-organized emergency drills.

The baseline regression results on the effects of individual emergency cognition and the community disaster mitigation environment on two types of emergency behavior, are presented in Table 4. Control variables were not incorporated into models M1, M2, and M4. The findings indicate a significant positive effect of both individual emergency cognition and the community disaster mitigation environment on the emergency behaviors of residents, thereby confirming hypotheses H1a, H1b, H1c, H2a, H2b, and H2c. To account for potential omitted variable bias, models M3 and M5 were developed with the inclusion of control variables. The analysis demonstrated that the influence coefficients of all observed variables on residents’ emergency behavior remained significantly positive, and their magnitudes changed minimally, further emphasizing the robustness of this study’s conclusions.

When considering self-help emergency behavior, the presence of emergency knowledge and skills (in individual emergency cognition) and the public availability of information (in the community disaster mitigation environment) appear to be more crucial factors for residents adopting self-protective measures. This phenomenon might occur as residents, through processes of learning and practice, assimilate emergency knowledge and skills to the point where they become habitual; these ingrained habits then unconsciously guide individuals toward appropriate emergency responses, often without their explicit awareness. From a behavioral decision-making perspective, an increase in both the scope and proficiency of knowledge and skills builds greater confidence among residents. This greater confidence, accordingly, results in increased self-effectiveness concerning their intended behaviors (66). Besides, a key principle of cognitive science is information processing (67). As information transparency improves, residents tend to place greater trust in information sources. This trust is vital for protecting the communication pathways between organizations and individuals, which are dependent on the flow and processing of information, thereby encouraging behavioral attitude changes.

In mutual aid emergency behavior, emergency emotions (as a component of individual emergency cognition) and cultural propaganda (an aspect of the community disaster mitigation environment) more significantly affect on the collective mutual assistance actions of residents. The emotional and psychological bonds that exist between individuals and the groups they form in a community could explain this pattern. Core characteristics of a community, such as emotional connection and trust, enhance the willingness of residents to engage in mutual aid (68). Moreover, emergency resilience education activities are often implemented at the community level. These activities contribute to strengthening the ties and cohesion among community members, thereby cultivating the development of a community-wide emergency culture. Residents are more disposed to offer support and collaborate in addressing community disaster challenges once they have established robust networks of trust.

This research employed the SPSS macro program PROCESS 4.1 to explore the moderating effect of disaster experience on the connections between individual emergency cognition, the community disaster mitigation environment, and emergency behavior, following the moderation model testing method proposed by Wen et al. (69). An analysis of the moderating effects (Table 5) indicated that disaster experience does not act as a moderator on the relationship between individual emergency cognition and emergency behavior. Accordingly, hypothesis H3a was not supported. One possible reason is the somewhat general method disaster experiences were measured, which did not differentiate their specific nature, severity, or type. It is conceivable that minor disaster experiences are not impactful enough to significantly change an individual’s cognitive processes or behaviors; whereas, severe disaster experiences have the potential to cause significant psychological trauma and stress responses. With the passage of time, individuals may gradually adapt, returning to their usual psychological states and behavioral modes, and this adaptation could reduce the moderating role of disaster experiences on emergency actions. Data from models M9, M10, and M11 demonstrated that disaster experience significantly moderates the relationships involving cultural propaganda, basic emergency response infrastructure, and information publicization with emergency behavior; these findings also satisfied the 1% significance level test. It implies that disaster experience enhances the positive effects of cultural propaganda, basic emergency response infrastructure, and information dissemination on residents’ emergency conduct. Therefore, hypothesis H3b found validation through these results.

Considering that older residents frequently contend with issues such as cognitive decline, social impediments, and a reduced sense of effectiveness when reacting to emergencies, this study segmented residents into two age-based classifications: those younger than 60 years and those 60 years or older. The findings presented in Table 6 demonstrate that an understanding of emergency basics significantly increases the likelihood of emergency behavior among the younger demographic (under 60). However, for the older group, the effect of these basics on self-help emergency behavior did not achieve significance. The comparatively entrenched individual behavioral patterns of residents aged 60 and above could account for this difference. Such individuals generally exhibit a strong dependence on past experiences when confronting emergencies and are less inclined to carry out behavioral shifts, even if their knowledge of emergency fundamentals improves. Moreover, limitations related to physical capabilities and fitness levels place further restrictions on their capacity for rapid adjustment to emergency situations. This constraint contributes to the maintenance of their long-established self-help behavioral tendencies during crises (70).

Residents’ emergency behaviors are driven by multiple influencing factors. The findings of the study, illustrated in Figure 3, highlight emergency knowledge and skills as a crucial determinant of an individual’s likelihood to engage in self-help behaviors amid crises. This observation aligns with the concept of self-efficacy given by Bandura (73), which suggests that an individual’s belief in their own capabilities strongly affects their confidence in performing self-help actions. Therefore, more comprehensive emergency knowledge and skills appears to boost residents’ self-effectiveness when facing disaster risks, thereby prompting greater initiative in their emergency decision-making during urgent situations. Liu et al. (74) present findings consistent as well, demonstrating that individuals with greater expertise in knowledge and skills related to floods are more inclined to initiate evacuation during such disasters. Moreover, the availability of solid emergency knowledge and skills strengthens residents’ confidence, which promotes more active engagement in emergency response efforts and the implementation of self-help measures. Communities, for this reason, should offer easily accessible resources, such as practical, user-friendly knowledge and skills designed for emergency situations. To facilitate learning and application, they should also render concise operational guides for complex tools. Communities could also offer more flexibility, enabling residents to select courses that align best with their individual needs to improve the effectiveness of skill development programs.

Regarding another key factor that affects self-help emergency behavior, residents’ access to open and transparent information has significantly improved the effectiveness of emergency responses involving their participation. This finding is consistent with several studies indicating that better information acquisition positively affects participants’ engagement levels during emergencies. Griffin’s et al. (75) work, which proposed that information sufficiency, perceived capacity for information collection, and beliefs about relevant channels could influence decisions to take effective action, aligns with this result; whereas, if residents experience challenge obtaining disaster resources, their emergency behaviors might be adversely affected (76). From the viewpoint of social cognition theory, the accessibility of disaster-related information is a fundamental component of environments designed for disaster risk mitigation. It has a direct impact on how residents perceive the effectiveness of emergency measures and the means they engage in emergency actions. By improving the efficiency and transparency of publicly available disaster information in communities, potential barriers residents face during emergencies can be reduced, allowing them to access critical information more readily in times of crisis. It is expected that such a transparent communication strategy will further build residents’ confidence in utilizing self-help strategies during emergencies, which finally strengthens their capacity to act as protectors and contribute to efforts reducing disaster risk.

Emotion regulation stands as a vital cognitive function for adapting to life’s challenges. Research indicates that a positive emotional state contributes to stimulating residents’ motivation for mutual rescue. Hammond’s study supports this observation by emphasizing the importance of positive emotions for prosocial behavior and development (77). Positive emotions, which include empathy and a sense of responsibility, encourage mutual aid behaviors. A higher sense of responsibility compels individuals to regard mutual aid as an indispensable obligation. Moreover, instinctual responses can be further prompted by moderate levels of psychological fear, encouraging individuals to take immediate action during crises, such as seeking assistance from others or offering support to those in need. Effective positive emotional management also assists residents in minimizing defensive behaviors and cultivating clearer communication, thereby offering crucial support for mutual aid activities.

Our findings, when viewed from a cultural capital perspective, highlight the significant role of cultural propaganda in both predicting and facilitating mutual aid behaviors. Parboteeah et al. identify positive and interactive social connections with others as an essential prerequisite for mutual aid behavior (78). The research undertaken by Martí offers additional backing for the notion that community cultural and educational activities cultivating collective values can stimulate collective action for societal good (79). Additionally, through publicity and educational activities, residents can gain awareness of the disasters prevalent in their community and recognize the limits of their own individual capacities. Therefore, they will realize the necessity of mutual aid. Finally, community-organized emergency activities offer opportunities for informal interaction; these opportunities help to lower interpersonal barriers common in modern communities and cultivate emotional connections among participants.

Another significant discovery from this study is the moderating effect of disaster experiences on the relationship between community disaster mitigation environments and individual emergency behaviors. Similarly, the research by Que. et al. corroborates the notion that a more severe disaster experience increases the likelihood of residents deciding to engage in mutual aid actions. Specifically, communities that have previously encountered disasters tend to implement more thorough disaster risk reduction measures to lessen the potential for future catastrophic losses; such measures include upgrading emergency facilities, conducting frequent disaster drills, and promoting the spread of disaster-related knowledge. Residents who have lived through disasters exhibit an increased awareness of potential risks (65). It motivates them to participate actively in these disaster reduction efforts, which increases the level of their emergency behaviors.

The analysis results of this study suggest several implications:

The first strategy involves establishing efficient, direct channels for information dissemination; it also includes implementing a standardized, formatted information delivery mechanism. During disaster events, it is possible for relevant departments to utilize apps, official websites, and social media platforms for the real-time dissemination of authoritative disaster warning information. Additionally, an improvement in residents’ literacy education regarding information can assist in developing their capacity for accurate information identification and filtering, thereby strengthening their sense of self-protection and emergency response capabilities.

A second area for consideration is the community’s capacity to enhance emergency culture and disaster preparedness. The organization of theme cultural activities, for instance community emergency assistance, enables the community to propagate concepts of helping and harmonizing; this can also cultivate “neighborhood mutual aid and social harmony” as individual values in daily life. Emergency culture elements can be integrated into community infrastructure development; for instance, setting up emergency knowledge propaganda boards or creating emergency evacuation route maps offers residents with subtle emergency culture education. Selecting and cultivating individuals who act as positive role models is another approach; through these examples, the community can inspire broader resident participation in collective emergency work. Therefore, the collective ability of the community in mutual assistance and response is enhanced by this effort.

A third key point involves enhancing residents’ emergency literacy, considering that individual emergency knowledge and skills form the decision-making basis for emergency behavior. Designing customized education and training programs is essential; these programs should be designed to residents’ age groups and occupational categories and must emphasize households as fundamental units of emergency preparedness. Encouragement should be offered for residents to sufficiently prepare prior to potential emergencies. To effectively improve residents’ response and collaborative abilities, organizing comprehensive exercises is also important. These exercises should focus on preemptive measures, relocation and avoidance, self-help, and mutual aid, and they should be coupled with targeted drills for common regional disasters.