El carácter macrocultural de la identidad nacional

Resumen

El objetivo de este artículo es examinar las raíces macroculturales de la identidad nacional. En este sentido, sostenemos que solamente puede entenderse cabalmente la identidad nacional si se considera su dimensión colectiva, política, histórica y cultural. Por eso nos parece que es necesario adoptar una perspectiva macrocultural con el objetivo de comprender el funcionamiento y los mecanismos psicológicos implicados en la construcción y apropiación de cualquier identidad nacional. En primer lugar, destacamos algunos principios básicos de la psicología macrocultural. Ello nos permite, en un segundo lugar, considerar la identidad nacional una función psicológico superior. Finalmente, el caso de las relaciones de género en Arabia Saudita nos permite ejemplificar la conceptualización de una identidad y conducta colectiva según la perspectiva macrocultural presentada.     

Motorcycle riders’ self-reported aggression when riding compared with car driving

Aggressive driving has been shown to be related to increased crash risk for car driving. However, less is known about aggressive behaviour and motorcycle riding and whether there are differences in on-road aggression as a function of vehicle type. If such differences exist, these could relate to differences in perceptions of relative vulnerability associated with characteristics of the type of vehicle such as level of protection and performance. Specifically, the relative lack of protection offered by motorcycles may cause riders to feel more vulnerable and therefore to be less aggressive when they are riding compared to when they are driving. This study examined differences in self-reported aggression as a function of two vehicle types: passenger cars and motorcycles. Respondents (n = 247) were all motorcyclists who also drove a car. Results were that scores for the composite driving aggression scale were significantly higher than on the composite riding aggression scale. Regression analyses identified different patterns of predictors for driving aggression from those for riding aggression. Safety attitudes followed by thrill seeking tendencies were the strongest predictors for driving aggression, with more positive safety attitudes being protective whilst greater thrill seeking was associated with greater self-reported aggressive driving behaviour. For riding aggression, thrill seeking was the strongest predictor (positive relationship), followed by self-rated skill, such that higher self-rated skill was protective against riding aggression. Participants who scored at the 85th percentile or above for the aggressive driving and aggressive riding indices had significantly higher scores on thrill seeking, greater intentions to engage in future risk taking, and lower safety attitude scores than other participants. In addition participants with the highest aggressive driving scores also had higher levels of self-reported past traffic offences than other participants. Collectively, these findings suggest that people are less likely to act aggressively when riding a motorcycle than when driving a car, and that those who are the most aggressive drivers are different from those who are the most aggressive riders. However, aggressive riders and drivers appear to present a risk to themselves and others on road. Importantly, the underlying influences for aggressive riding or driving that were identified in this study may be amenable to education and training interventions.     

Buying an electric car: A rational choice or a norm-directed behavior?

The diffusion of electric cars can contribute to more sustainability in the transport sector, but diffusion rates in most countries are still low. We investigated motives for electric car adoption in German households from an environmental psychology perspective. The public debate focuses on rational aspects such as the purchase price or new technological demands (e.g., limited range and a new charging system). Psychological research on energy-related investment decisions in households confirms the relevance of rational motives, but additionally points to the importance of norm-directed motives (moral and social norms). We investigated the relevance of different motives in an online questionnaire with n = 220 members of German households interested in buying a new car. The questionnaire included possible rational and norm-related predictors of electric car adoption. We tested three action models to explain adoption intention: An adjusted technology acceptance model (TAM), an adjusted norm activation model (NAM), and an integrative model with predictors from both models. We analyzed the hypothesized models with path analyses. All models explained a substantial share of variance in adoption intention. The explained share of variance in the NAM was higher than in the TAM and comparably high to the integrative model. The results demonstrate the important role of moral and social motives for households’ investment decisions. Additionally, the technology’s perceived usefulness was an important rational motive. We discuss the context dependency of the results, as household members might have little knowledge about the new technology during the early stages of a technology’s diffusion process. The results strongly suggest broadening political support schemes, such as informational and image campaigns, as a way to more effectively foster electric car diffusion. More comprehensive assessments appear to be necessary in future analyses of electric car adoption as well as energy-related investment decisions.     

Is car following the real question – are equations the answer?

Within the constraints that they set themselves, Brackstone, M. and McDonald, M. (Transportation Research: Part F (2000)), do a good job in elucidating the current state-of-the-art concerning car following models. Further, their protestation concerning the importance of such models in the light of growing intelligent transportation systems (ITS) technology and potential application in collision-warning and collision-avoidance systems is also undoubtedly correct. Also, as a member of the human factors expert panel cited (Intelligent Transportation Society of America. (1997). In Proceedings of the Intelligent Vehicle Initiative Human Factors Workshop. Washington DC: ITS America) it can be confirmed that normative models of driving remain a crucial unsolved issue. Thus, for these reasons their present review is both helpful and timely and deserves wide circulation. The points of contention do not concern their specific observations but rather the intrinsic assumptions upon which they are based. In particular, the question asked is, is car following the real question and equations the answer?     

Factors influencing drivers’ decision to install an electronic speed checker in the car

Intelligent speed adaptation (ISA) refers to various concepts aiming at limiting the vehicle speed. In Umeå, Sweden, a large scale field study was carried out to test the possibility to, on a voluntary basis, install one type of ISA device in private vehicles. In this study 10,300 car owners were contacted by telephone and offered to have an ISA device installed in their car. This paper reports on drivers’ attitudes to four different ISA-applications and on factors influencing the decision to install the one type of ISA, an electronic speed checker (ESC). The results show that approximately 40% of the respondents accepted the offer to have an ESC installed in their vehicle. The analysis indicated that age, perceived risk, moral and perceived difficulty to keep the speed limits significantly influenced their evaluation of the ESC and that the perception of the ESC influenced the decision to participate.     

Where did you park your car? Analysis of a naturalistic long-term recency effect

Abstract

Three experiments studied the long-term retention of parking locations. In Experiment 1, members of the Applied Psychology Unit (MU) attempted to recall where they had parked during the morning and afternoon of each of the previous 12 working days. A marked recency effect was observed. In Experiment 2, members of the APU Subject Panel were invited for a single test session, and asked where they had parked after a delay of 2 hours, 1 week or 1 month. Recall was excellent and did not differ as a function of delay, allowing a simple trace decay interpretation to be ruled out. A third experiment invited subjects to attend on two occasions separated by a 2-week interval. The subjects were then required to recall their parking locations some 4 weeks after either their first visit or their second visit. Performance in both groups was inferior to that observed in Experiment 2, and declined over time. A temporal discrimination model, based on laboratory studies of both long-term and short-term recency in free recall, offers a plausible explanation of our results.     

Illusion of safety? Safety-related perceptions of pedestrians and car drivers around 3D crosswalks

Facilitating safe pedestrian road crossings is a major prerequisite for safe urban environments. In multiple cities around the world, 3D crosswalks have been painted, which provoke an optical illusion, of e.g., a crosswalk floating above the road, in car drivers who approach the crosswalk. However, to date, no detailed study of road users’ safety related perceptions on 3D crosswalks has been conducted. Hence, we investigated car drivers’ and pedestrians’ perceptions of a 3D crosswalk, and how they rate its safety in comparison to traditional (non-3D illusion) crosswalks. In an on-site questionnaire survey, we interviewed 201 pedestrians and 102 car drivers in the direct vicinity of a newly painted 3D crosswalk located in Yangon, Myanmar. Our results show that only 53.9 % of the car drivers report to have consciously perceived the 3D effect of the crosswalk. Nonetheless, both, pedestrians and car drivers rate the 3D crosswalk as safer for road crossing than a traditional crosswalk. A high share of pedestrians (43.3 %) report taking a detour to use the 3D crosswalk for road crossing. Approximately one third (31.3 %) of pedestrians and 48.0 % of car drivers interviewed have talked to their friends about the 3D crosswalk, indicating a high potential for using 3D crosswalks as a marketing tool for road safety actors to generate attention for pedestrian safety. Unrelated to our main research question, we found that pedestrians prefer to cross in groups, as it increases the perceived likelihood of cars yielding to them. Overall, the data points to significant increases in the perceived safety of drivers as well pedestrians around the 3D crosswalk. Future studies need to investigate how these perceptions translate to actual safety related behavior.     

What drives car use? A grounded theory analysis of commuters’ reasons for driving

A grounded theory analysis of reasons for driving to work was undertaken following semi-structured interviews with 19 regular private car commuters in a small English city. Five core motives were identified: journey time concerns; journey-based affect; effort minimisation; personal space concerns; and monetary costs. An underlying desire for control underpinned many of these motives. The analysis revealed misconceptions regarding journey times and control in relation to car and public transport use, systematic underestimation of car-related monetary costs, and the importance of self- and identity-relevant consequences in relation to transport policy acceptance. Drivers’ motives and misconceptions are discussed in light of transport demand management policies.     

Commuting by car or public transportation? A social dilemma analysis of travel mode judgements

The current paper analyses judgements regarding the decision to commute by car versus public transportation in terms of a conflict between immediate self-interest and long-term collective interest (i.e. social dilemma). Extending traditional formulations of rational choice theory, the present study revealed that preferences for public transportation (i.e. the presumed cooperative option) in a standard commuting situation were enhanced not only by the belief that public transportation provided a shorter average travel time than car (i.e. the presumed noncooperative option), but also by the belief that public transportation was at least as reliable (i.e. an equal or lower variability in travel time compared to car). Moreover, paralleling prior research on experimental social dilemmas, preferences were found to be affected by a pro-social concern—the belief regarding the impact of cars on the level of environmental pollution. Our findings indicated that any combination of two such considerations (i.e. travel time, variability, and impact of cars on pollution) was m ore effective in promoting public transportation preferences than the sum of their separate effects. Finally, we obtained evidence that commuter preferences were also shaped by individual differences in social value orientations (i.e. preferences for patterns of outcomes for self and others) in that, relative to pro-self commuters, pro-social commuters exhibited greater preference for public transportation.     

Is the donut in front of the car? An electrophysiological study examining spatial reference frame processing.

The process of describing an object's location relative to another object results in ambiguity. How do people handle this ambiguity? The present studies examined spatial language processing when use of different reference frames results in ambiguity. We investigated whether electrophysiological (ERP) measures of cognitive processing may elucidate underlying reference frame processing; in particular, we were interested in semantic integration. ERP results showed a larger N400, peaking between 300 and 375 ms, when the intrinsic frame was not used. Behavioural results mirrored this finding, indicating a reduced cognitive processing requirement for the intrinsic reference frame. Previous work has not definitively tied spatial reference frame processing to specific ERP components and their associated cognitive processes. Although the N400 peak seen in this data is early, additional work supports the N400 interpretation, thereby linking spatial frame processing to semantic integration. Results are discussed within the larger context of spatial reference frame processing.     

The effect of visual and cognitive distraction on driver’s anticipation in a simulated car following scenario

Distraction is a common cause of accidents (e.g. NHTSA, 2009), and different distraction conditions influence the driving behaviour in a specific way. Despite a lot of research in this area, most studies concentrate on perception errors as a result of visual distraction. The effects of different distraction conditions on higher cognitive processes are still unclear. The fact that accidents happen even if the drivers perceive all relevant information implies that cognitive factors contribute to accidents, too. For this reason, this study was conducted to investigate how different distraction conditions influence the anticipation of events in a car–following scenario. Anticipation is required to know what will happen next, and to react adequately to the situation. In a driving simulator, scenarios with different manoeuvres of a preceding car were created to generate various anticipations and therefore a different adaptation of the driving behaviour. Additionally, a cognitive and a visual secondary task were introduced. The question was in which way either a cognitive or visual distraction influences the generation of anticipations and the construction of an appropriate situation model.The results indicate that in the phase when the preceding car showed braking manoeuvres, drivers prolonged their safety distance only when being visually distracted which is probably done to compensate for this visual distraction. This compensation ensued to some extent in the second phase where the preceding cars drove with a constant speed. Additionally, drivers who were visually distracted went somewhat slower when the car in front had braked in phase one. Thus, the drivers seemed to anticipate that the car might brake again and adapted their speed accordingly. This was not found in drivers with cognitive distraction. Thus, cognitive distraction seems to disturb this anticipation.Finally, at an intersection, drivers with visual distraction had a smaller TTC and a higher velocity when the car in front made an unexpected turn. Thus, the impairment of perception due to the visual distraction leads to a slower reaction as compared to a cognitive distraction. Overall, cognitive distraction influences the anticipation of possible future actions of other car drivers negatively while visual distraction deteriorates perception and thus the reaction to critical, sudden events. Thus, different intervention strategies are required to prevent these kinds of accidents.     

Private car as the grand equaliser? Demographic factors and mobility in Finnish men and women aged 65+

The present study examined the association between selected demographic variables and community-related mobility of Finnish elderly citizens. A mail survey was sent to 2500 Finnish citizens aged 65 and over. The overall response rate was 62%. Mobility was measured in two dimensions: overt travel behaviour and unfulfilled travel needs. Several demographic variables had a clear association with both dimensions of mobility. Sub-groups with reduced mobility included women, rural residents, the oldest old, and those without a driver license. When the interactions of single demographic variables were controlled for, significant predictors for hindered mobility were absence of driver license and rural-type residing. The results indicate that the level of mobility varies among the elderly, and there are certain sub-groups with limited mobility, often those with less overall resources. The possibility to drive a private car is, at present, crucial for older persons' mobility, which has important implications both for further research and policy discussion.     

Using a three-stage model of change to understand people’s use of bicycle,public transport,and car

More active ways of travelling (e.g., walking, cycling, and public transport) would benefit both individuals and society. To encourage people’s transition to more active travelling, it is important to understand the decision-making process regarding modal choice. The first aim of this study is therefore to combine a three-stage version of the transtheoretical model of change (TTM; Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983) with the theory of planned behaviour (TPB; Ajzen, 1991) to advance our understanding of the nature of the TTM stages. The second aim is to examine certain characteristics (i.e., age, gender, importance of everyday exercise, importance of environmental issues, perceived accessibility, and satisfaction with travel) of these three stages of change. The study used a web-based questionnaire, an app-based questionnaire, and an app-based travel diary completed by 306 people in the Stockholm area. The observed behaviour measured using the app-based travel diary showed that the three-stage model used in this study was consistent with the participants’ self-reported travel behaviour in using bicycles, public transport, and cars. Interventions focusing on attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control appear to have potential to move people from one stage to another regardless of initial stage. To make interventions as effective as possible, the stage of change as well as the behavioural, normative, and control beliefs underpinning attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control must be considered. Finally, more research is needed to advance our knowledge of the relationship between the three stages of change and other variables.     

Factors influencing car use for commuting and the intention to reduce it: A question of self-interest or morality?

Car use for commuting contributes to various environmental and traffic problems, such as pollution and congestion. Policies aimed at reducing commuter car use will be more effective when they target important determinants of car use and willingness to reduce it. This study examined whether variables reflecting self-interest (from the theory of planned behavior [Ajzen, I. (1985). From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behavior. In J. Kuhl & J. Beckmann (Eds.), Action control: From cognition to behavior (pp. 11–39). Berlin: Springer]) and variables reflecting moral considerations (from the norm-activation model [Schwartz, S. H. (1977). Normative influences on altruism. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.). Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 221–279). New York: Academic Press]) were able to explain self-reported car use for commuting and intentions to reduce it in a sample of Canadian office workers. Car use for commuting was mostly explained by variables related to individual outcomes (perceived behavioral control and attitudes) whereas the intention to reduce car use was mostly explained by variables related to morality (personal norms). The study also found that perceived behavioral control moderated the relation between personal norms and behavioral intentions: stronger personal norms were associated with stronger behavioral intentions, but only when perceived behavioral control was low. Some issues evoked by these results are discussed.     

“Put the blame on…others!”: The battle of cyclists against pedestrians and car drivers at the urban environment. A cyclists’ perception study

The main hypothesis of the paper is that cyclists tend to blame primarily car drivers, for the conflict events they have experienced with cars, but they do not have the same intention for the conflict events with pedestrians. For this purpose, 306 cyclists were interviewed through a revealed questionnaire survey and 64% revealed that they had experienced a conflict with a pedestrian whereas 55% revealed that they had experienced a conflict with a car. From the responses, two linear regression models were developed, with the perceived responsibility considered as the dependent variable.The cycling–pedestrian model indicated that cyclists who also have car accessibility, tend to blame primarily the pedestrians for the incidents, compared to cyclists who do not possess a car. Further, cyclists tend to give less responsibility to pedestrians for incidents occurred at sidewalks, crosswalks, etc. compare to incidents occurred at shared use paths. In addition, cyclists do not blame pedestrians for conflicts occurred primarily at sidewalks and crosswalks; places were pedestrians are considered to have the priority. Finally, cyclists aged between 55 and 64 years old, are giving less responsibility to pedestrians for the incident, compare to cyclists aged between 25 and 39 years old.On the other hand, the cycling–car model showed that an illegal cyclist’s movement at a road segment can reduce by half the responsibility the cyclists give to the car drivers, compare to the responsibility they give when the latter have an aggressive driving behavior. It was also found that cyclists, who tend to cycle less than 1 h, do not blame so much the car drivers for the incident, compared to cyclists that cycle for longer. Finally, cyclists who prefer the bicycle lane to be located along the road instead at the sidewalk, tend to accuse less the drivers for the incident.