SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION A Psychological Perspective

This paper discusses possible contributions of psychologists to sustainable transportation. It is argued that in order to reach sustainable transportation, among others, behaviour changes of individual car users are needed. As transport policies will be more effective if they target important antecedents of travel behaviour, first, factors influencing such behaviour are discussed. It is argued that car use is very attractive and sometimes even necessary for many different reasons. This implies that a combination of policies is called for, each targeting different factors that support car use and hinder the use of more sustainable modes of transport. Next, the paper elaborates on policy strategies that may be employed to achieve sustainable transportation by changing car use. Increasing the attractiveness of sustainable transport modes by means of pull measures seems not sufficient to reduce the level of car use. Besides, car use should be made less attractive by means of push measures to force drivers to reconsider their travel behaviour. The acceptability of such policies may be increased by clearly communicating the aim of these policies, and the expected positive consequences (e.g., less congestion, improved environmental quality). Moreover, possible negative effects for individual freedom may be compensated by implementing additional policies aimed at facilitating the use of sustainable transport modes

Morality and Prosocial Behavior: the Role of Awareness, Responsibility and Norms in the Norm Activation Model

This paper examines the relationships between variables included in the Norm Activation Model of prosocial behaviour (NAM). Specifically, we evaluate the strength of two commonly used interpretations of this model, namely the NAM as a mediator model and the NAM as a moderator model. Five studies focussing on a variety of prosocial intentions and behaviours provide most support for the NAM as a mediator model. Furthermore, these studies validate past research by showing that variables included in the NAM are powerful in explaining a diversity of prosocial intentions and behaviours in the social as well as in the environmental context

Sustainable transportation in Argentina:Values, beliefs, norms and car use reduction

<p>Most Latin American countries face important environmental and societal problems associated with an increase in car traffic, and only recently, transport policies aimed at reducing these harmful consequences of car use have begun to be discussed and put on the public agenda of these countries. Surprisingly, little is known about the factors influencing the acceptability of transport policies and intentions to reduce car use in Latin America, as studies on acceptability of transport policies have typically been conducted in Europe. Previous evidence from European samples - where reducing car used had been widely discussed - showed that the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory of environmentalism was an adequate theoretical framework to predict the acceptability of a transport pricing policy, as well as the intention to reduce car use when this policy would be implemented. But can these results be generalised to non-European samples? In this paper, we report results of a questionnaire study among 160 participants from Buenos Aires, Argentina, aimed to test the VBN theory. We found that the VBN theory was indeed also successful in explaining policy acceptability and intention to reduce car use in Argentina. In addition, we found support for the causal structure of the variables in VBN theory. Interestingly, biospheric and hedonic values were also directly and significantly related to feelings of moral obligation when intermediate variables were controlled for. These results suggest that normative considerations, activated by values, indeed predict policy acceptability and the intention to reduce car use in Argentina and that these considerations should be taken into account to increase the acceptability of policies aimed at reducing car use. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.</p>