Drivers are territorial about their cars

Psychologists have examined the way people see their cars as part of their territory. Graham Fraine and colleagues conducted focus groups with a cross-section of 89 participants, from young, novice drivers to more experienced people who drive vehicles for a living.
The researchers drew on Irwin Altman's classic work on human territoriality conducted in the 70s and 80s, which posited that territory can be seen as either primary, secondary or public according to factors like how much time is spent in the space, how central it is to someone's life and how much they mark the space out as their own using barriers or signs of ownership.

The comments made by many participants showed they viewed their cars as a form of primary territory akin to the way we view our homes. For example, people talked of their car as a safe haven ("Sometimes if I'm not going for a drive, I'll just go and sit in it and put on the radio") and as a repository of memories ("I don't want to get rid of it because of the sentimental value"), both of which are signs of primary territory.

The drivers also described ways they marked their cars, either for self-expression ("My car's dedicated to Mark Bolan") or communication ("I suppose a sticker is a sort of way of communicating the things that you disagree with"). The behaviour of other drivers on the road, in terms of tailgating or cutting in, was also discussed in terms of an invasion of space.

The Digest asked lead author Graham Fraine to reflect on whether his research could be relevant to attempts to reduce people's car use: "Buses, trains and ferries, by virtue of being ‘public’ transport, are likely to be perceived as providing much lower levels of autonomy, privacy and identity," he said. "Some of the focus group participants in my research have claimed that public transport doesn’t travel where and when they want, it can’t give them the music they want to listen to, and they have to sit next to people they don’t know. In turn, convenience and control (including control over music and travelling companions) were important features of the car."

"This may in part also account for the popularity of MP3 players with public transport users, as they try to create their own personal space within the public mode of transport they inhabit. As such, providing initiatives to reduce car use may require more than provision of adequate infrastructure and timetabling for alternative modes, and ultimately begs the question of whether transport systems should be designed to cater for non-instrumental aspects of travel."
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Fraine, G., Smith, S.G., Zinkiewicz, L., Chapman, R. & Sheehan, M. (2007). At home on the road? Can drivers' relationships with their cars be associated with territoriality? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 27, 204-214.

Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

Climate change will damage your health!

The skies are crowded with planes, our sclerotic roads clogged with millions of cars – when will we wake up to the urgency of climate change?

Spreading the word about the effect climate change will have on human health. That could be the key.

A group of Swedish psychologists asked 621 participants aged from 18 to 75 whether 44 statements about climate change were true or false. These were arranged into several domains: facts about the state of the climate, the causes of climate change, and the consequences for the weather, sea, glaciers and human health.

For example, a true statement about human health consequences stated: “It is probable that mortality by lung oedema and heart problems during heat waves in Sweden will increase in the next 50 years.”

It was specifically the participants' knowledge about the consequences for human health that most strongly predicted how worried they were about climate change, and how likely they thought it was that serious negative consequences would affect Sweden and other countries in the future. Knowledge of the causes of climate change had a weak association with the participants' perception of risk, but not their concern about that risk.

“A practical implication is that in order to change people's behaviour, more research and focused educational programmes about health consequences should be beneficial,” Eva-Lotta Sundblad and colleagues wrote.

To the researchers' surprise, although women were more worried than men, most demographic factors did not predict participants' worry or sense of risk surrounding climate change. For example, parents were no more concerned than non-parents.
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Sundblad, E-L., Biel, A. & Garling, T. (2007). Cognitive and affective risk judgements related to climate change. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 97-106.

Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

Why train designers should avoid three-seat rows

Train companies should consider designing bigger carriages with pairs of seats only, and should avoid rows consisting of three seats. That's according to Gary Evans and Richard Wener whose new study demonstrates that it's not the overall number of people on a carriage that affects how cramped we feel, rather its the number of people in our immediate vicinity. That's why so many of the middle seats are left empty in three-seat rows.

One hundred and thirty-nine train commuters travelling from New Jersey to Manhattan, New York City were assessed after a typical journey into work. The researchers took two measures of crowding: overall carriage density, based on the total number of people on the carriage divided by the number of seats; and nearby density, based on the number of people in each participant's row, relative to the number of seats in that row.

Nearby density was found to have a significant impact on the participants' self-reported mood, concentration (based on a proof-reading task) and stress levels (measured via a cortisol swab). By contrast, overall crowding in the carriage wasn't significantly related to any of these factors.

As well as avoiding three-seat rows, the researchers advised public transport designers to include “territorial props” such as arm rests and small tables in between seats, to help prevent commuters feeling that their personal space is being infringed.
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Evans, G.W. & Wener, R.E. (2007). Crowding and personal space invasion on the train: Please don't make me sit in the middle. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 27,90-94.

Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

Nature video is more calming when viewed on a big screen

The idea that nature can have a rejuvenating effect is of course not new. “There's joy in the mountains; There's life in the fountains; Small clouds are sailing; Blue sky prevailing”, wrote William Wordsworth back in 1802.

But if we can't reach the countryside, what about the benefit of looking at nature in photos or on TV? Yvonee de Kort and colleagues believe that crucial to such media having a beneficial effect is how immersed in the simulated natural environment an observer feels.

To test this, 80 participants watched a ten-minute nature film after being stressed out by an arithmetic task conducted in a noisy environment. Half the participants watched the video on a massive 72-inch screen, the other half on a 31-inch screen. Measures of the participants' skin conductance and heart beat showed participants who watched the big screen calmed down more quickly after the maths test than did participants who watched the small screen.

The researchers said: “If a relatively moderate and simple screen size manipulation is effective, a more immersive environment – that is, extensive, multimodal or interactive – should definitely have potential, for instance for therapeutic use”.
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de Kort, Y.A.W., Meijinders, A.L., Sponselee, A.A.G. & Ijsselsteijn, W.A. (2007). What's wrong with virtual trees? Restoring from stress in a mediated environment. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 26, 309-320.

Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

Getting people on the buses

Financial incentives aren’t the only way to encourage people to be more environmentally friendly. According to Ellen Matthies and colleagues at the Ruhr-Universitat in Germany, many people do care about the environment, despite their polluting habits, and so an alternative approach is to invite them to commit themselves to a change in behaviour. They tested a two-pronged strategy that involved inviting a voluntary commitment on the one hand, paired with a habit-breaking incentive on the other.

Matthies’ team recruited 297 people who made a regular journey in their car that could easily be completed by bus. Some were given a free bus ticket, while others were given a description of the harm to the environment that cars do, and invited to commit to a choice of green behaviours, including swapping their car for public transport during the next two weeks. Some participants were given the ticket as well as being invited to commit to a change of behaviour. Control participants received no intervention. Telephone interviews before, during and after the interventions were used to monitor people’s travelling behaviour.

In the short-term, the free ticket, the voluntary commitment, or both together, all increased the number of people who tried swapping their car for public transport, with the free ticket being most effective. For example, seven per cent of participants tried the bus before getting a free ticket, compared with 16.3 per cent afterwards. However, at the final 26 week follow up, the researchers found that it was those participants who had both committed themselves voluntarily to trying the bus and received a free ticket, who were most likely to still be using more public transport than at baseline.

The researchers concluded: “From a practical perspective, it follows that not only so-called “hard measures” [i.e. financial incentives] can be applied to alter the problematic behaviour, but that also ‘soft measures’ (e.g. plea for commitment), which target the moral dimension of environmental behaviour, may be helpful under some circumstances: if readiness for a commitment is high and if the plea for commitment is combined with a habit-defrosting strategy”.
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Matthies, E., Klockner, C.A. & Preisner, C.L. (2006). Applying a modified moral decision making model to change habitual car use: How can commitment be effective? Applied Psychology, an International Review, 55, 91-106.

Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

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