Efficacy of behavioural interventions for transport behaviour change: systematic review, meta-analysis and intervention coding

BACKGROUND: Reducing reliance on motorised transport and increasing use of more physically active modes of travel may offer an opportunity to address physical inactivity. This review evaluates the evidence for the effects of behavioural interventions to reduce car use for journeys made by adults and codes intervention development and content. METHODS: The review follows the procedure stated in the registration protocol published in the PROSPERO database (registration number CRD42011001797). Controlled studies evaluating behavioural interventions to reduce car use compared with no interventions or alternative interventions on outcome measures of transport behaviours taken in adult participants are included in this review. Searches were conducted on all records in Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA), Ovid Embase, Ovid Medline, Ovid PsycInfo, Scopus, Sociological Abstracts, Transportation Research Information Service (TRIS), Transportation Research International Documentation (TRID), and Web of Science databases. Peer reviewed publications in English language meeting the inclusion criteria are eligible. Methodological quality is assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool. Interventions are categorised in terms of behavioural frameworks, theories and techniques. RESULTS: 15 full text articles are included, representing 13 unique studies, with 4895 participants and 27 intervention arms. Risk of bias across the review is appraised as considerable due to the unclear methodological quality of individual studies. Heterogeneity of included studies is considerable. Meta-analyses reveal no significant effect on reduction of frequency of car use or on increasing the proportion of journeys by alternative, more active modes of transport. There is insufficient data relating to alternative outcomes such as distance and duration which may have important health implications. Interventions were top-down but could not be described as theory-based. Intervention efficacy was associated with the use of a combination of information provision and behavioural regulation techniques. There was a lack of consideration of opportunity for change and behaviour in context. CONCLUSIONS: There is no evidence for the efficacy of existing behavioural interventions to reduce car trips included in this review. The evidence for efficacy of behavioural interventions to decrease distance and duration of car journeys is limited and inconclusive. Overall the evidence is highly heterogeneous and is at considerable risk of bias. Future research should investigate alternative behavioural interventions in high quality, controlled studies informed by existing evidence, theory, and viewers of potential users. Future intervention studies should increase scientific rigour, include objective outcome measures, and incorporate thorough evaluations as standard. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12966-014-0133-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Shedding light on the psychological and behavioral determinants of travel mode choice: A meta-analysis

Mobility represents a relevant topic from the standpoint of environmental degradation, health-related consequences and social inclusion. Since private mobility is responsible for the greatest share of polluting emissions, it is necessary to gain deeper understanding of the mechanisms underpinning the choice of individuals to use either cars or alternative, environment-friendly transport modes. A meta-analysis on 58 primary studies is conducted to synthesize evidence on the determinants of travel mode choice, as regards both behavioral intentions and actual behaviors. Results suggest that, besides intentions, habits and past use represent the most relevant predictor, followed by constructs referring to the Theory of Planned Behavior framework. Environmental variables, on the other hand, play a relevant role in shaping behavioral intentions while their effect on actual behaviors is negligible, so that a deep intention behavior gap emerges. A moderator analysis is performed to explain the high heterogeneity in the results. Behaviors’ operationalization and measurement emerges as the moderator affecting heterogeneity of outcomes the most; trip purpose, sample type and year of the study also show a moderate effect on heterogeneity, while location does not appear to be a relevant moderator

A Naive Victim or a Willing ISIS-devotee? - Deserving or losing your human rights : A critical discourse analysis of two British newspaper's framing of Shamima Begum and her human rights

Between 2011 and 2019 around 900 British citizens left the United Kingdom to travel to Syria and join militant groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS) (EPRS, 2018, p.33). After the fall of the so-called caliphate the issue of prosecuting and/or bringing citizens back was widely debated in Europe, especially in the UK, who was accused of taking a drastic measure to the dilemma, causing a political rift in the nation (NPR, 2019). At the center of the debate, both in the media and in parliament, was a young woman called Shamima Begum, who was deprived of her UK citizenship in 2019. This event lead to a debate on human rights and if Begum had had hers violated (The Times, 2019). Previous research has shown that the ethical media discourse on human rights is multifaced, contested and strong in its ability to incite certain worldviews in society (Sampaio, 2016, p.2). Furthermore, previous studies argue that women tend to be framed differently from men in the media when they are involved in conflict, terror or war (Sjöberg & Gentry, 2007, p.30). In addition to this, western media tends to use Muslim women as a symbol of difference by stereotyping them in terms of culture and religion (Brown, 2011, p.716). This study aims to trace the width and depth of UK media’s discourse on human rights issues and the debate on foreign fighters over the political spectrum, through the case of Shamima Begum. Building off of framing theory and previous research on the framing of females and Islam, it asks how the Guardian and the Times, two national British newspapers, prioritizes the aspect of human rights in their reporting on Begum’s case. This by asking what frames they construct and how these frames compare and differ between the two outlets and the years 2015 and 2019. The material, constituted by articles and images, was analyzed on the base of Critical Discourse Analysis and Framing theory. The results find four different frames used. These frames are the Naïve victim, the Imperfect victim, ISIS radicalisation and the Willing ISIS devotee. The frames propose opposite standpoints of the newspapers both in their view on Begum and her guilt, and ultimately her human rights, perhaps aligning their discourse with the polarized political one in the UK. The study also shows that aspects connected to Begum’s gender and religion to some extent are prioritized in the framing of her, ultimately affecting the view of her end her fundamental rights as a human being

Studies in cross-modal transfer and matching of form

Härtill 6 rapporter.digitalisering@um

Response-induced imagery in cross-modal transfer of form discrimination

Molander, B., and Garvill, J. Response-induced imagery in eros s-modal transfer of form discrimination. Umeå Psychological Reports No. 127, 1977. - In a cross-modal transfer experiment subjects learned to associate forais varying in imagery value with three-dimensional objects which were presented either visually or tactually.After training in one modality transfer was tested in the other modality. It was hypothesized that verbal labels facilitate tactual stimulus encoding more than visual stimulus encoding and that this facilitation is more pronounced with high-imagery labels as compared to low-imagery labels. The results showed that transfer in the tactual-visual order was superior to transfer in the visual-tactual order and that the size of this asynmetry was the same for both types of labels. These results are taken to indicate that imagery is of minor importance as a mediating process in the cross-modal transfer of form discrimination.digitalisering@um

A Naive Victim or a Willing ISIS-devotee? - Deserving or losing your human rights : A critical discourse analysis of two British newspaper's framing of Shamima Begum and her human rights

Between 2011 and 2019 around 900 British citizens left the United Kingdom to travel to Syria and join militant groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS) (EPRS, 2018, p.33). After the fall of the so-called caliphate the issue of prosecuting and/or bringing citizens back was widely debated in Europe, especially in the UK, who was accused of taking a drastic measure to the dilemma, causing a political rift in the nation (NPR, 2019). At the center of the debate, both in the media and in parliament, was a young woman called Shamima Begum, who was deprived of her UK citizenship in 2019. This event lead to a debate on human rights and if Begum had had hers violated (The Times, 2019). Previous research has shown that the ethical media discourse on human rights is multifaced, contested and strong in its ability to incite certain worldviews in society (Sampaio, 2016, p.2). Furthermore, previous studies argue that women tend to be framed differently from men in the media when they are involved in conflict, terror or war (Sjöberg & Gentry, 2007, p.30). In addition to this, western media tends to use Muslim women as a symbol of difference by stereotyping them in terms of culture and religion (Brown, 2011, p.716). This study aims to trace the width and depth of UK media’s discourse on human rights issues and the debate on foreign fighters over the political spectrum, through the case of Shamima Begum. Building off of framing theory and previous research on the framing of females and Islam, it asks how the Guardian and the Times, two national British newspapers, prioritizes the aspect of human rights in their reporting on Begum’s case. This by asking what frames they construct and how these frames compare and differ between the two outlets and the years 2015 and 2019. The material, constituted by articles and images, was analyzed on the base of Critical Discourse Analysis and Framing theory. The results find four different frames used. These frames are the Naïve victim, the Imperfect victim, ISIS radicalisation and the Willing ISIS devotee. The frames propose opposite standpoints of the newspapers both in their view on Begum and her guilt, and ultimately her human rights, perhaps aligning their discourse with the polarized political one in the UK. The study also shows that aspects connected to Begum’s gender and religion to some extent are prioritized in the framing of her, ultimately affecting the view of her end her fundamental rights as a human being

Studies in cross-modal transfer and matching of form

Härtill 6 rapporter.digitalisering@um

A note on the relation between cross-modal transfer of learning and cross-modal matching

Garvill, J., and Molander, B. A note on the relation between cross-modal transfer of learning and cross-modal matching. Umeå Psychological Reports No. 126, 1977. - Cross-modal transfer of learning was studied in a paradigm that closely parallels the one used for studying intra-modal and cross-modal Hatching. The hypotheses that (1) the asymmetric transfer effects found in studies of cross-modal transfer of learning and in studies of intra-modal and eros s-modal Hatching are compatible and (2) that they can be explained in terms of differences in information processing capacity between the visual and the tactual modality were tested. The results supported the hypotheses. It was also found that the amount of cross-modal transfer as well as the asymmetry of transfer are affected by letting the subjects practice the transfer task on each trial.digitalisering@um

Effects of interference on intra-modal and cross-modal matching of form

Garvill, J., and Molander, B. Effects of interference on intra-modal and cross-modal matching of form. Umeå Psychological Reports No. 124, 1977. - This experiment was designed to test two hypotheses concerning differential memory for visually and tactually acquired information in intranodal and cross-modal matching of form. The intra-modal conditions were VV (visual standard, visual comparison)and TT (tactual standard, tactual comparison). The cross-modal conditions were VT (visual standard tactual comparison) and TV (tactual standard, visual comparison). Between the standard stimulus and comparison stimulus either an unfilled interval or a visual matching task or a tactual matching task was interpolated. The first hypothesis suggests that the memory traces for tactually acquired information are less stable than those for visually acquired information and thus more sensitive to interference. According to the second hypothesis there are modality specific memory storages and the information acquired are coded and stored in the memory for the comparison modality.This hypothesis predicts interference only when the interfering task is presented in the same modality as the comparison stimulus. The results gave clear evidence of interference. However, the interference effects were the same regardless of standard modality, comparison modality or kind of interference. Thus, the results suggest a common form of storage for visual and tactual information.digitalisering@um