Review
Psychological theories of car use: An integrative review and conceptual framework

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2017.10.009Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Psychological theories were reviewed to better understand modifiable antecedents of car use.

  • Comprehensive theories of how and why environmental behaviour patterns are initiated and sustained have been developed.

  • However, some mechanisms underlying car use choice are not represented in theory and have not been empirically investigated.

  • An integrated conceptual overview of car use based on multiple theories is presented.

  • The framework highlights the complexity of antecedents of car use and related environmental behaviours.

Abstract

Personal car use is increasing globally and is an important contributor to poor air quality and global greenhouse gas emissions. Although individuals have little direct control over some emission sources (e.g. heavy industry), they can modify their car use thereby reducing their own contribution. There have been many attempts to understand the psychology of personal car use and identify ways in which individuals might be encouraged to adopt more environmentally friendly travel modes. The aims of this study were (1) to review available psychological theories and models and their applications to understanding car use, (2) to assess the quality of empirical tests of relevant theories and (3) to develop an integrated conceptual overview of potentially modifiable antecedents that could inform future intervention design and further theoretical research. Fifteen psychological theories were identified from thirty-two unique studies but most theories were applied only once. Although two theories in particular (the Comprehensive Action Determination Model and Stage Model of Self-Regulated Behaviour Change) are both relatively comprehensive and have empirical support, our review suggests there are mechanisms of behavioural regulation relevant to car use that are not included in either theory. Integrating theories, we developed an integrative conceptual framework, referred to as the CAr USE (or CAUSE) framework of cognitive and emotional antecedents of car use. This framework is likely to be applicable to other ecologically-relevant behaviour patterns. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Introduction

Transport accounts for approximately 64% of world oil consumption and global transport energy use has doubled in the past 30 years, mainly because of increased car use (International Energy Agency, 2015). Without new regulatory policies, global demand for road travel is likely to double by 2050 with rising numbers of cars in developing countries (International Energy Agency, 2015). This has serious ramifications for human health and environment (World Health Organisation, 2016). Car use reduces physical activity during commuting (Flint et al., 2014, Wener and Evans, 2007) while substantially increasing carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions compared to public transport use (Shapiro, Hassett, & Arnold, 2002). In the longer term, affordable low-carbon or carbon-neutral cars may reduce the environmental impact of driving but large increases in car use are predicted before such technologies become widely available (Clark and Cooke, 2016, Falcocchio and Levinson, 2015, pp. 53–69). Meanwhile, encouraging more sustainable travel is crucial to mitigating these worrying trends (Garcia-Sierra, van den Bergh, & Miralles-Guasch, 2015).

This will depend on persuading the public, including drivers, to use public transport or walk or cycle, especially for commuting (Van Acker, Goodwin, & Witlox, 2016). While many interventions have been tested there are surprisingly few robust interventions that have been found to reduce car use (Graham-Rowe, Skippon, Gardner, & Abraham, 2011). Research that elucidates the processes by which transport modes are chosen and used routinely is crucial for optimising intervention effectiveness. Models developed within a psychology of transportation can identify antecedents of car use and determinants of behaviour change that may be targeted by interventions (van Acker, van Wee, & Witlox, 2010). Understanding theorised mechanisms also allows researchers to describe how and why interventions are or are not effective. For example, was an intervention unsuccessful because it had no effect on the targeted mechanism of action or because the targeted mechanism had no or only weak effects on transport behaviour patterns? Robust application and testing of such models or theories in intervention evaluations affords tests of theoretical accuracy and comprehensiveness so facilitating theory development and refinement (Rothman, 2004).

Past reviews in this area have focused on identifying and evaluating specific predictors and change mechanisms underlying car use, without mapping out their relations with other predictors and change mechanisms (Gardner and Abraham, 2008, Klöckner, 2013). Such reviews indicate that, while antecedents specified by a range of theories are correlated with car use, many theories do not comprehensively explain car use (because key mechanisms are absent), (e.g., the Theory of Planned Behaviour [Ajzen, 1991] and the Norm Activation Model [Schwartz, 1977]). Thus more comprehensive theories that develop and combine existing theoretical understanding are needed, hence the proposed Comprehensive Action Determination Model (Klöckner & Blöbaum, 2010) and the Stage Model of Self-Regulated Behaviour Change (Bamberg, 2013b).

It is also clear that empirical tests of proposed theories do not always comprehensively operationalise the complete range of mechanisms specified by the theory. So it is important to distinguish between compete and partial tests of theories when assessing the extent to which those theories are empirically supported.

This paper reviews psychological theories that have been applied to understanding car use. Theories are a set of concepts and/or statements that specify how phenomena relate to each other, describe a system for what is known, and explain and predict phenomena (Bem and Looren de Jong, 1997, Chalmer, 1976). We had four aims in the current work: 1) identify psychological theories applied to understanding car use, 2) assess the extent to which the identified theories had been applied within the transportation literature, 3) assess the quality of theory utilisation and application within identified studies, and 4) assess the comprehensiveness of theories in terms of their inclusion of relevant mechanisms.

Section snippets

Methods

Psychological theories of car use were identified using four sources: electronic databases, web searching, forward and backward searching of reference lists and hand searching of key transport psychology journals. Empirical application of the theories was identified from electronic databases and the reference lists of retrieved articles.

Study characteristics

An overview of the study characteristics is presented below with more detailed information found in Table A.1. Very high levels of agreement were observed for decisions on inclusion of articles (title and abstract, and full text screening: 100%), data extraction (theory identification: 100%; construct identification: 96% study information: 94%) and quality assessment (overall: 92%; theory application: 94%). Thus further statistical assessment of inter-rater reliability was judged to be

Discussion

Our review identified thirty-two unique studies that applied fifteen different psychological theories to understanding car use. Some theories were more frequently applied than others with seven theories applied in more than 80% of studies and eight theories only applied once. Thus some theories are more influential than others. This is consistent with reviews of theory utilisation across other areas (e.g., Abraham et al., 1998, Davis et al., 2015, Glanz and Bishop, 2010). This is likely due to

Conclusions

Humanity is causing measurable changes to our ecosystem and only changes in our behaviours at population levels can arrest these trends. The current work attempted to integrate an extensive psychological literature exploring the psychological determinants of car use as an exemplar of how psychological constructs can help us better understand what drives and motivates environmentally-relevant behaviours. Combining 15 theories we developed an integrative conceptual framework of antecedents of car

Author's note

The appendices mentioned in the text and additional supplementary documents are available upon request from the authors.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Prof. Harry Heft and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. This work was undertaken as part of the first author's PhD funded by a Shell Global Solutions (UK) award to CA and supervised by CA, MW and SS. CA is partially funded by UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care of the South West Peninsula PenCLAHRC. MW is partially

References (71)

  • T. Gärling et al.

    Empirical tests of a model of determinants of script-based driving choice

    Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour

    (2001)
  • E. Graham-Rowe et al.

    Can we reduce car use and, if so, how? A review of available evidence

    Transportation Research a: Policy and Practice

    (2011)
  • C.A. Klöckner

    A comprehensive model of the psychology of environmental behaviour—a meta-analysis

    Global Environmental Change

    (2013)
  • C.A. Klöckner et al.

    A comprehensive action determination model: Toward a broader understanding of ecological behaviour using the example of travel mode choice

    Journal of Environmental Psychology

    (2010)
  • A.K.Y. Leung et al.

    Being environmentally responsible: Cosmopolitan orientation predicts pro-environmental behaviors

    Journal of Environmental Psychology

    (2015)
  • H.B. Lind et al.

    The value-belief-norm theory, personal norms and sustainable travel mode choice in urban areas

    Journal of Environmental Psychology

    (2015)
  • S.H. Schwartz

    Normative influences on altruism

    Advances in Experimental Social Psychology

    (1977)
  • H.B. Truelove et al.

    Positive and negative spillover of pro-environmental behavior: An integrative review and theoretical framework

    Global Environmental Change

    (2014)
  • V. Van Acker et al.

    Key research themes on travel behavior, lifestyle, and sustainable urban mobility

    International Journal of Sustainable Transportation

    (2016)
  • L. Whitmarsh et al.

    Green identity, green living? The role of pro-environmental self-identity in determining consistency across diverse pro-environmental behaviours

    Journal of Environmental Psychology

    (2010)
  • C. Abraham et al.

    A taxonomy of behavior change techniques used in interventions

    Health Psychology

    (2008)
  • C. Abraham et al.

    From health beliefs to self-regulation: Theoretical advances in the psychology of action control

    Psychology & Health

    (1998)
  • P.B. Baltes et al.

    Psychological perspectives on successful aging: The model of selective optimization with compensation

    Successful Aging: Perspectives from the Behavioral Sciences

    (1990)
  • S. Bamberg

    Is a residential relocation a good opportunity to change People's travel Behavior? Results from a theory-driven intervention study

    Environment and Behavior

    (2006)
  • S. Bamberg

    Is a stage model a useful approach to explain car drivers' willingness to use public transportation?

    Journal of Applied Social Psychology

    (2007)
  • S. Bamberg et al.

    Incentives, morality, or habit? Predicting students' car use for university routes with the models of Ajzen, Schwartz, and Triandis

    Environment and Behavior

    (2003)
  • S. Batel et al.

    Developing a critical agenda to understand pro-environmental actions: Contributions from social representations and social practices theories

    Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change

    (2016)
  • S. Bem et al.

    Theoretical issues in psychology

    (1997)
  • A.F. Chalmer

    What is this thing called Science? An assessment of the nature and status of science and its methods

    (1976)
  • W. Clark et al.

    Smart green Cities: Toward a carbon neutral world

    (2016)
  • S. Clayton et al.

    Psychological research and global climate change

    Nature Climate Change

    (2015)
  • S. Çolak et al.

    Analyzing cell phone location data for urban travel

    Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

    (2015)
  • R. Davis et al.

    Theories of behaviour and behaviour change across the social and behavioural sciences: A scoping review

    Health Psychology Review

    (2015)
  • Cited by (33)

    • Should I Drive Today? Development of a daily driving decisions model for older adults

      2021, Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour
    • COVID-19 and its long-term effects on activity participation and travel behaviour: A multiperspective view

      2021, Journal of Transport Geography
      Citation Excerpt :

      On the other hand, several of the trends reviewed by van Cranenburgh et al. (2012) only lasted a relatively short period of time, such as the oil crises. This finding is corroborated by Chng et al. (2018), Lattarulo et al. (2019) and Circella (2021), who, in the context of analysing the long-term consequences of observed changes in travel behaviour, find that these changes are difficult to realize. Hence, the results of the past are no guarantee for the future.

    • Icy roads and urban environments. Passenger experiences in autonomous vehicles in Finland

      2021, Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour
      Citation Excerpt :

      There are not yet any routines in using autonomous vehicles and moral norms about using these vehicles are not yet formed. For these reasons we preferred TRB to other theories, such as the most widely used UTAUT2 (Venkatesh et al., 2012; see also Chng et al. 2018). In this study we are interested in identifying factors of behavioural change linked to autonomous vehicles.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text