Adaptive theory of thermal comfort suggests that people tend to adjust themselves or their environment to achieve thermally comfortable conditions whenever discomfort conditions occurred. In this work, a highrise residential building was selected to investigate the residents' adaptive behaviour in the hot humid climate in Malaysia. The objectives are to investigate residents' preference to use the available adaptive opportunities to achieve thermal comfort, the daily use of the climatic controls and the reasons that influence this usage. A questionnaire survey was distributed to investigate residents' personal adjustment as well as modifying the indoor thermal environment. The results showed that residents prefer to control their climate conditions using fans and opening windows prior to performing personal adjustment that involves thermoregulation of their bodies. However, when these actions fail to please them, switching on the air-conditioners might be the last choice. In terms of climatic controls, using fans and opening windows were higher in the morning and evening, while they dropped with an increase of the airconditioners usage during the noontime. In addition, residents find the use of fans and opening windows are enough to be comfortable. Nevertheless, they prefer the availability of air-conditioners for extreme thermal conditions. These findings prove that proper buildings' design with appropriate passive techniques can provide thermally comfortable conditions without the needs for mechanical conditioning.