Anita Gärling

Moderating effects of social value orientation on determinants of proenvironmental behavior intention

A sample of 524 car owners living in a metropolitan area of Sweden answered survey questions measuring intention to perform collective proenvironmental behavior, awareness of egoistic, social-altruistic, and biospheric environmental consequences, personal norm, and ascribed responsibility. A measure derived from the survey responses was used to classify individuals in prosocial vs. proself value orientations. A structural model was estimated positing that proenvironmental behavior intentions are causally related to personal norm that in turn is causally related to ascribed responsibility and awareness of the different types of environmental consequences. Prosocials differed from proselfs in that to them social-altruistic consequences were more and egoistic consequences less salient.

REINTRODUCING ATTITUDE THEORY IN TRAVEL BEHAVIOR RESEARCH: THE VALIDITY OF AN INTERACTIVE INTERVIEW PROCEDURE TO PREDICT CAR USE.

A methodological challenge is to develop methods which satisfy the need in transport planning of accurately forecasting travel behavior. Drawing on a review of the current state of attitude theory, it is argued that successfully forecasting travel behavior relies on a distinction between planned, habitual, and impulsive travel. Empirical illustrations are provided in the form of stated-response data from two experiments investigating the validity of an interactive interview procedure to predict household car use for different types of trips, either before or after participants were required to reduce use.

Household choices of car-use reduction measures

The present research investigated what car-use reduction measures are perceived by households to be feasible if their goal is to reduce car driving. In Study 1 a number of such measures were included in a survey questionnaire requesting a total of 770 randomly selected respondents to rate how likely they would be to choose the different measures. The ratings suggested that for shopping trips choosing closer stores and trip chaining are more likely to be chosen than any other measure. A similar pattern was observed for leisure trips. Switching to public transport was the most likely choice for work trips. Women were more likely than men to choose public transport and trip chaining, whereas men were more likely than women to choose motorbike/moped. Choices of car pooling, biking, and motorbike/moped decreased with age. In Study 2 it was determined in interviews what choices households would make in forming car-use reduction intentions, then 1-week travel diaries were collected to assess whether their car-use intentions were implemented. A random sample of 113 multiperson households participated. They expected to be able to change approximately 10% of their car trips. However they made many more trips than they had expected. Constraints, perceived costs, and preferences for different car-use reduction measures may all play a role for the choices. Further research needs to disentangle these roles since their implications for policies are different.

Forecasting Psychological Consequences of Car Use Reduction: A Challenge to an Environmental Psychology of Transportation

Au cours du troisieme millenaire, la penurie d’energie et la pollution de l’air vont probablement imposer une reduction des transports motorises des personnes et des marchandises. En se focalisant sur la reduction du trafic des voitures privees dans les zones urbaines, l’objectif des recherches passees a souvent ete l’evaluation du rapport cout-efficacite des strategies sociales de reduction. En complement, on essaie, dans cet article, de prevoir les consequences psychologiques de la reduction de l’utilisation de l’automobile. In the third millennium energy shortage and air pollution are likely to necessitate a reduction of motorised transport of people and cargo. Focusing on reduction in travel by private cars in urban areas, the aim of previous research has frequently been to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of societal reduction strategies. A complementary attempt is made in this article to forecast psychological consequences of car use reduction.