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Sociodemography, Geography, and Personality as Determinants of Car Driving and Use of Public Transportation
University of Borås, Faculty of Textiles, Engineering and Business. Division of Psychical Resource Theory, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.
Division of Psychical Resource Theory, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.
Centre for Consumer Research, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden.
2020 (English)In: Behavioral Sciences, E-ISSN 2076-328X, Vol. 10, no 6Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

To address the sustainability challenges related to travel behavior, technological innovations will not be enough. Behavioral changes are also called for. The aim of the present study is to examine the influence of sociodemography, geography, and personality on car driving and use of public transportation. Sociodemographic factors have been defined by age, gender, income, and education. Geographic factors have been studied through residential area (e.g., rural and urban areas). Personality has been studied through the Five-Factor-Model of personality-degree of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. The analysis is based on a survey with 1812 respondents, representative for the Swedish population. Regarding sociodemographic factors, car driving is explained by being male, higher age, higher income, while use of public transportation is explained by lower age and higher education. The user profile of a car driver is the opposite to that of a public transport passenger when it comes to geographic factors; urban residential area explains public transportation while rural area explains car driving. Some personality factors are also opposites; a low degree of Openness and a high degree of Extraversion explain car driving, while a high degree of Openness and a low degree of Extraversion explain use of public transportation. Moreover, car driving is explained by a low degree of Neuroticism, while use of public transportation is explained by a low degree of Conscientiousness and a high degree of Agreeableness. Since sociodemography, geography, and personality influence how people process information and evaluate market propositions (e.g., products and services), the findings presented here are useful for policymakers and transportations planners who would like to change behavior from car driving to public transportation use. Caution should be taken in interpreting the relationship between personality traits and transportation modes, since the personality traits are measured by a short scale (i.e., Big Five Inventory (BFI)-10), with limitations in the factor structure for a representative sample of the Swedish population.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI , 2020. Vol. 10, no 6
Keywords [en]
public transportation, car use, sociodemography, geography, personality, behavior change
National Category
Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-24835DOI: 10.3390/bs10060093ISI: 000551178400003Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85092040589OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hb-24835DiVA, id: diva2:1520948
Note

16th European Congress of Psychology (ECP), Moscow, RUSSIA, JUL 02-05, 2019

Available from: 2021-01-21 Created: 2021-01-21 Last updated: 2025-09-24

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