TY - JOUR

T1 - Psychological, sociodemographic, and infrastructural factors as determinants of ecological impact caused by mobility behavior

AU - Hunecke, Marcel

AU - Haustein, Sonja

AU - Grischkat, Sylvie

AU - Boehler, Susanne

N1 - Funding Information: The results are based on research conducted by the junior research group MOBILANZ, which was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education und Research (BMBF) in the framework of the program “Social-Ecological Research”.

PY - 2007/12/1

Y1 - 2007/12/1

N2 - In this study, the relevance of psychological variables as predictors of the ecological impact of mobility behavior was investigated in relation to infrastructural and sociodemographic variables. The database consisted of a survey of 1991 inhabitants of three large German cities. In standardized interviews attitudinal factors based on the theory of planned behavior, further mobility-related attitude dimensions, sociodemographic and infrastructural characteristics as well as mobility behavior were measured. Based on the behavior measurement the ecological impact of mobility behavior was individually assessed for all participants of the study. In a regression analysis with ecological impact as dependent variable, sociodemographic and psychological variables were the strongest predictors, whereas infrastructural variables were of minor relevance. This result puts findings of other environmental studies into question which indicate that psychological variables only influence intent-oriented behavior, whereas impact-oriented behavior is mainly determined by sociodemographic and household variables. The design of effective intervention programs to reduce the ecological impact of mobility behavior requires knowledge about the determinants of mobility-related ecological impact, which are primarily the use of private motorized modes and the traveled distances. Separate regression analyses for these two variables provided detailed information about starting points to reduce the ecological impact of mobility behavior. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

AB - In this study, the relevance of psychological variables as predictors of the ecological impact of mobility behavior was investigated in relation to infrastructural and sociodemographic variables. The database consisted of a survey of 1991 inhabitants of three large German cities. In standardized interviews attitudinal factors based on the theory of planned behavior, further mobility-related attitude dimensions, sociodemographic and infrastructural characteristics as well as mobility behavior were measured. Based on the behavior measurement the ecological impact of mobility behavior was individually assessed for all participants of the study. In a regression analysis with ecological impact as dependent variable, sociodemographic and psychological variables were the strongest predictors, whereas infrastructural variables were of minor relevance. This result puts findings of other environmental studies into question which indicate that psychological variables only influence intent-oriented behavior, whereas impact-oriented behavior is mainly determined by sociodemographic and household variables. The design of effective intervention programs to reduce the ecological impact of mobility behavior requires knowledge about the determinants of mobility-related ecological impact, which are primarily the use of private motorized modes and the traveled distances. Separate regression analyses for these two variables provided detailed information about starting points to reduce the ecological impact of mobility behavior. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

KW - Environmental planning

KW - Enviromental behavior

KW - Environmental impact

KW - attitudes

KW - Mobility behavior

KW - transportation

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=36148994349&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/1396c06a-a358-3760-8873-dc83bff4f2a0/

U2 - 10.1016/j.jenvp.2007.08.001

DO - 10.1016/j.jenvp.2007.08.001

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 27

SP - 277

EP - 292

JO - Journal of Environmental Psychology

JF - Journal of Environmental Psychology

SN - 0272-4944

IS - 4

ER -