Health Education Research Advance Access originally published online on June 15, 2004
Health Education Research 2005 20(1):36-50; doi:10.1093/her/cyg093
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Health Education Research Vol.20 no.1, © Oxford University Press 2005; All rights reserved
Development and evaluation of a mass media Theory of Planned Behaviour intervention to reduce speeding
1 Centre for Social Marketing at the University of Stirling and Open University, Department of Marketing, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA and 2 Department of Marketing, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0RQ, UK
3 Correspondence to: M. Stead; E-mail: marketing{at}stir.ac.uk
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Abstract |
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The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) has been widely applied to the explanation of health and social behaviours. However, despite its potential to inform behaviour change efforts, there have been surprisingly few attempts to use the TPB to design actual interventions. In 1998, the Scottish Road Safety Campaign implemented a 3-year mass media campaign to reduce speeding on Scotland's roads which was explicitly shaped by the TPB's three main predictors: Attitude, Subjective Norms and Perceived Behavioural Control. A 4-year longitudinal cohort study examined the impact of the campaign on communications outcomes and on TPB constructs. Overall, empirical support was found for the decision to use TPB as the theoretical underpinning of the advertising. The advertising was effective in triggering desired communications outcomes, and was associated with significant changes in attitudes and affective beliefs about speeding. In conclusion, future directions for road safety advertising and for TPB research are discussed.
The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) has been widely applied to the explanation of health and social behaviours. However, despite its potential to inform behaviour change efforts, there have been surprisingly few attempts to use the TPB to design actual interventions. In 1998, the Scottish Road Safety Campaign implemented a 3-year mass media campaign to reduce speeding on Scotland's roads which was explicitly shaped by the TPB's three main predictors: Attitude, Subjective Norms and Perceived Behavioural Control. A 4-year longitudinal cohort study examined the impact of the campaign on communications outcomes and on TPB constructs. Overall, empirical support was found for the decision to use TPB as the theoretical underpinning of the advertising. The advertising was effective in triggering desired communications outcomes, and was associated with significant changes in attitudes and affective beliefs about speeding. In conclusion, future directions for road safety advertising and for TPB research are discussed.
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Introduction |
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The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)
TPB, an extension of Fishbein and Ajzen's (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975
) Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), posits that behaviour is determined by behavioural intention, which is in turn predicted by Attitude to the behaviour, Subjective Norms and Perceived Behavioural Control (PBC) (Ajzen, 1988). Attitude is predicted by instrumental beliefs about the consequences of performing the behaviour (e.g. ‘it will save time’), weighted by outcome evaluations of the desirability of those consequences (e.g. ‘saving time would be a good/bad thing’). Subjective Norms are predicted by normative beliefs about whether significant ‘referents’ (e.g. mother, partner) would approve of one performing the behaviour in question, weighted by one's motivation to comply—to behave in a manner which would meet each referent's approval. PBC is thought to influence behaviour both directly and through behavioural intentions. PBC can be defined simply as perceived ease of performing or refraining from a particular behaviour, or as the product of two sets of factors—control beliefs about one's ability to perform or refrain from the behaviour in various circumstances and control frequency: how often one is in those circumstances (see Figure 1).
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The TPB has been widely applied to health behaviours including diet (Dennison and Shepherd, 1995
; Conner et al., 1996; Povey et al., 2000), contraceptive use (Jamner et al., 1998), exercise (Courneya et al., 2001), substance use (Conner and Sherlock, 1998; Godin et al., 1992), attendance for health screening (Rutter, 2000) and road safety (Manstead, 1991; Parker et al., 1992, 1995; Stradling and Parker, 1996; Evans and Norman, 1998; Quine et al., 1998; Carcary et al., 2001), and has been found capable of explaining, on average, around 40% of the variance in health intentions and behaviour (Rutter and Quine, 2002). Consequently, it has been claimed that the model has tremendous potential to inform the development of behaviour change interventions [e.g. (Rutter, 2000; Armitage and Conner, 2002; Hardeman et al., 2002)].
Despite this, there have been surprisingly few attempts to use the TPB as the basis of health behaviour campaigns (Armitage and Conner, 2002) and ‘well-designed studies that evaluate carefully developed interventions, specifically targeting TPB components and measuring the effect on cognitions as well as behaviour, are needed to provide evidence about the utility of the TPB in this area’ [(Hardeman et al., 2002), p. 151]. Two notable smaller-scale examples are a TPB-based drama intervention to increase adolescent pedestrian safety (Evans and Norman, 2002) and a TPB-based booklet to encourage schoolchildren's cycle helmet use (Quine et al., 2002). However, many of what are described as TPB intervention studies use the model to provide outcome measures against which to track effects, but not to design the intervention itself [e.g. (Bamberg and Schmidt, 1998; Hardeman et al., 2002)]; others use the TPB to design an intervention, but do not then measure impact on the targeted TPB predictors [e.g. (Hardeman et al., 2002; Reger et al., 2002)]. The Foolsspeed campaign set out to do both: to use TPB to design a large-scale intervention and to use TPB to assess its impact.
Speeding and the TPB
Clearly, deterrence and enforcement are important measures for reducing the incidence of speeding. However, if the psychological mechanisms which motivate drivers to speed can be identified, then there is the potential to develop interventions which, by influencing those mechanisms, lead to changes in speeding behaviour (Parker et al., 1996). The tendency for drivers to have an illusory sense of control over their driving—to feel more in control than they actually are—and to exaggerate their own ability is a powerful contributor to driving violations in general and speeding in particular [e.g. (McKenna, 1991; Simon and Corbett, 1991)]. Compared with non-speeders, speeders tend to rate any adverse consequences of speeding both as less likely to occur and as less undesirable [e.g. (Stradling, 1999)]. Furthermore, they perceive more benefits in speeding, both at an instrumental level (getting somewhere quicker) and at an emotional level (the pleasure of going fast) (Vogel and Rothengatter, 1984; Corbett, 1991; Stradling, 1999). Compared to drink-driving, speeding attracts little stigma [e.g. (Corbett, 1991)], suggesting that social norms play an important role in legitimizing it as a normative, majority behaviour [e.g. (Stradling, 1999)]. The TPB's emphasis on attitudes, norms and control provides a useful model for describing these psychological influences on speeding. Previous studies have shown that the TPB is able to account for significant amounts of variance in intentions to speed [e.g. (Manstead, 1991; Parker et al., 1992, 1995; Stradling and Parker, 1996)]. Studies also suggest that ‘Affective Beliefs’—beliefs about the emotions one might experience while performing a behaviour as opposed to instrumental beliefs about its consequences—capture an important facet of driving behaviour and represent a useful addition to the TPB model (Stradling and Parker, 1996; Lawton et al., 1997). Positive Affective Beliefs might include pleasure in the sensation of speed, while Negative Affective Beliefs might include anxiety about appearing foolish or discourteous to other road users (Lawton et al., 1997).
Consequently, road safety researchers interested in the TPB have suggested that there is potential for interventions which target: (1) behavioural beliefs about the consequences of speeding, particularly the likelihood of being caught by the police, putting pedestrian lives at risk or causing an accident; (2) normative beliefs about how significant others such as family and friends perceive speeding; and (3) PBC, by reminding drivers that they are in charge of their own driving decisions and have a choice about their speed (Manstead, 1991; Parker and Stradling, 2001). This potential was lent support by a laboratory-based experiment in which four short videos, each addressing a cluster of beliefs about speeding in a residential area, produced some significant attitudinal changes (Parker et al., 1996; Parker, 2002).
Development of Foolsspeed
The Scottish Road Safety Campaign Foolsspeed campaign (1999–2001) was the first UK attempt to develop a large-scale driving behaviour intervention explicitly informed by the TPB. It comprised mass media advertising complemented by public relations and corporate sponsorship. The campaign target was the general driving population in Scotland, although a key target subgroup was drivers with a known tendency to speed, particularly 25- to 44-year-old males in social classes ABC1 (professional, white collar and clerical workers). Three television/cinema advertisements, targeting Attitude, Subjective Norms and PBC, respectively, were screened in the Spring of each of the three years (Table I). Content specifications and creative briefs for each advertisement were developed using a two-stage process. First, previous TPB studies into driving violations (Manstead, 1991; Stradling and Parker, 1996; Parker et al., 1996; Lawton et al., 1997) were consulted to identify the specific component beliefs likely to be most salient in the formation of Attitude, Subjective Norms and PBC regarding speeding. Second, formative research (eight focus groups with male and female drivers aged 18–44) was conducted to explore beliefs and norms about speeding, and feelings about road safety advertising.
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The formative research suggested that key elements of the campaign would be credibility—i.e. the depiction of realistic, non-extreme driving events—and empathy with the daily pressures experienced by drivers, such as congestion and ‘hassle’. It was decided that in order to increase identification with the advertising, a low-key style depicting everyday driving scenarios was more appropriate than a hard-hitting approach. Although fear-arousing road safety advertising can be effective in generating awareness [e.g. (Donovan et al., 1999
; Harrison and Senserrick, 2000)], there is the risk that viewers avoid such advertising because it is too distressing or discount it as unrealistic, not personally relevant and lacking in credibility (Job, 1990; deTurck et al., 1992; Witte et al., 1998; Snipes et al., 1999; Blumberg, 2000; Ruiter et al., 2001). The Foolsspeed campaign would test out whether a more empathetic and credible style of road safety advertising (Slater, 1999) could be equally, if not more, effective in engaging audiences. Consistent with this emphasis, it was also decided that the advertising would feature recognizable locations such as well-known Glasgow streets. Creative concepts for the three ads were then developed by an advertising agency and taken, in storyboard form with narrative audiotape, into subsequent stages of consumer research with a sample of the target audience (six focus groups each year for 3 years). Findings from these exercises were used to refine the ads further before final production.
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Method |
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A 4-year longitudinal cohort study was conducted with 550 drivers, aged 17–54, in Renfrew, an area whose affluence/deprivation profile is representative of the overall Scottish population (McLoone, 1991
). Following a thorough qualitative and quantitative pilot of the questionnaire, a baseline survey took measures of respondents' demographic and driving characteristics, and of the full raft of TPB constructs (Figure 2). Follow-up surveys, in Spring 1999, Spring 2000 and Summer 2001, repeated all the baseline measures, and also assessed response to the advertising in terms of awareness, recall, comprehension, identification, involvement and perceptions of key messages. The sample, recruited door-to-door, was selected to be representative of the 17- to 54-year-old driving population, with interlocking quota controls on age and sex. Respondents had to be in possession of a current driving license and drive at least once per week. The achieved sample at the second survey was 388, at the third survey 367 and at the fourth survey 287.
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Data were collected using an in-home face-to-face 20- to 40-min questionnaire administered by professional market research interviewers. A 10% quality check was conducted on all interviews to ensure correct administration. To encourage respondent cooperation, personalized mailouts were sent out annually, and a £5 gift voucher incentive was offered at the third and fourth surveys.
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Results |
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The evaluation sought to answer three questions. First, was the TPB an appropriate theoretical basis for the campaign: could it satisfactorily explain and predict the variations in speeding behaviour among Scottish drivers? Second, was a campaign based on the TPB capable of ‘working’ in communication terms: was it memorable, engaging and ‘on message’? Third, was the campaign effective in influencing the psycho-social determinants of speeding on which it was based? Main findings are reported here; a fuller set of findings is reported separately (Stead et al., 2002
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Was the TPB able to predict variance in speeding?
Multiple regression analyses found that the basic TPB was able to predict between 47 and 53% of the variance in intentions to speed (when analysed cross-sectionally at each survey stage), and between 33 and 40% of the variance in reported speeding behaviour (speeding on a 30 m.p.h. road) (Table II). The amount of variance explained in intentions was highest at the second survey (53%), although Subjective Norms did not significantly contribute to the model at this stage. PBC was the most powerful independent variable associated with intentions to speed at each survey stage.
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The TPB model's predictive ability over time was also examined. Table III shows the ability of baseline measures and other variables, including campaign awareness, to predict speeding intentions and behaviour four years later. All variables were entered into the model in one step. Where the dependent variable was intentions, the amount of variance explained was 27%. Significant predictors of intentions to speed at the fourth survey were Attitude, PBC, Subjective Norms and age (being younger). Awareness of the campaign, gender and social class were not significant predictors of intentions to speed. Where the dependent variable was reported behaviour, the amount of variance explained was slightly lower, at 22%. Reported speeding behaviour at the fourth survey was predicted by higher baseline measures of PBC and intentions to speed, and being younger. Again, awareness of the campaign, gender and social class were not significant predictors.
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Did the campaign generate desired communication outcomes?
Between a fifth and a third of respondents over the three surveys spontaneously recalled having seen any Foolsspeed advertising on television. At a prompted level, the Attitude ad had the highest recall level, 74% in Spring 1999 rising to 86% in both subsequent years, while the Subjective Norms and PBC ads had lower levels of prompted recall in the years they were first screened (55 and 53%, respectively).
A series of bipolar scales examined respondents' liking, comprehension, identification and involvement with the advertisements. The majority of respondents liked the Attitude ad, found it easy to understand, considered that it did not ‘talk down’ to them and made them think about their own driving. When responses were analysed by frequency of reported speeding (Figure 3), ‘frequent speeders’ were more likely than infrequent speeders to feel that the ad was targeted at them and to agree that it made them feel that they ‘drove too fast’ (Figure 4).
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: infrequent speeders (57).Similar responses were found for the PBC ad. Agreement with the items ‘the ad made me feel I need to have more control over my speed’, ‘the ad made me feel bad about how I drive’ and ‘the ad made me feel that I drive too fast’ increased with more frequent speeding behaviour, suggesting that, as with the Attitude ad, it was more successful in encouraging self-awareness and dissonance among frequent than infrequent speeders (Figure 5). The Subjective Norms ad triggered similar responses, although differences between frequent and infrequent speeders were less pronounced than with the other two ads.
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Did the campaign influence the TPB determinants of speeding?
Scores for all the main TPB constructs, plus additional components such as Positive and Negative Affective Beliefs, were compared between the baseline and follow-up surveys to assess whether any changes occurred over the period of the research in the sample as a whole. Results were then analysed by awareness of the relevant Foolsspeed ad (e.g. Attitude scores were analysed by awareness of the Attitude ad, etc.) to assess whether any changes were associated with exposure to the campaign.
Attitude
Table IV displays Attitude scores at an individual item and composite level for the sample as a whole, comparing the baseline and second survey scores (those obtained after the first screening of the ad). Two of the belief items displayed a significant change, in an anti-speeding direction, between the baseline and second survey (‘finding it difficult to stop quickly in an emergency’ and ‘driving at what you feel is a comfortable speed’). Between the baseline and third survey, combined scores for four of the items became significantly more anti-speeding: ‘difficult to stop quickly in an emergency’ (baseline –2.69, third survey –3.41, P < 0.05), ‘being able to keep up with the flow of traffic’ (baseline 1.30, third survey 0.89, P < 0.05), ‘driving at what you feel is a comfortable speed’ (baseline 0.18, third survey –0.52, P < 0.01) and ‘saving time’ (baseline 1.08, third survey 0.45, P < 0.01). However, by the fourth survey, only two of the items displayed a significant change and one of these changes was in the ‘wrong’ direction (i.e. more pro-speeding): ‘causing an accident’ (baseline –1.84, fourth survey –1.11, P < 0.05, pro-speeding direction) and ‘driving at what you feel is a comfortable speed’ (baseline 0.02, fourth survey –0.65, P < 0.05, anti-speeding direction).
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The changes in individual behavioural beliefs were strong enough to produce a significant change (in an anti-speeding direction) between the baseline and second survey in the overall Attitude to the Behaviour score and this change was sustained at the third survey. However, by the fourth survey this change in attitude towards speeding was no longer apparent.
In order to assess whether attitudinal changes were associated with the Foolsspeed campaign, scores for those who had seen the Attitude ad were then compared with scores for those who had not, at each survey stage. This analysis revealed that the change in the composite Attitude to the Behaviour, observed at the second and third surveys, was associated with having seen the ad at the third survey (Seen: baseline –5.85, third survey –7.96, P < 0.05; Not seen: baseline –3.70, third survey –5.91, NS), although it was not associated with awareness of the ad at the second survey. In addition, the majority of the changes in individual beliefs which make up attitudes were associated with awareness of the ad. Overall, the results suggested that the Attitude ad had had a moderately favourable effect on beliefs and attitudes, and that this effect was strongest at the third survey.
Positive Affective Beliefs and Negative Affective Beliefs
Although the three Foolsspeed ads were not designed specifically to address affective beliefs, these were measured at each stage to assess whether they displayed any changes during the campaign. Between the baseline and the second survey, Negative Affective Beliefs (NAB) increased significantly and Positive Affective Beliefs (PAB) decreased significantly, i.e. both became more strongly anti-speeding (NAB: baseline 73.45, second survey 76.44, P < 0.05; PAB: baseline 71.53, second survey 68.26, P < 0.05). At the third survey, only the NAB displayed a significant change from the baseline (baseline 71.98, third survey 75.93, P < 0.05), but at the fourth survey both the composite NAB and the composite PAB again displayed significant changes, in the same anti-speeding direction as at the second survey (NAB: baseline 74.35, fourth survey 80.47, P < 0.01; PAB: baseline 71.04, fourth survey 67.00, P < 0.01).
Subsequent analysis by awareness of the Foolsspeed campaign revealed a strong association with awareness of the Attitude ad. All of the significant changes in affective beliefs, apart from the increase in Negative Affective Beliefs between the baseline and second survey, were significantly associated with awareness of the ad at each survey stage. This suggests that the Attitude ad influenced beliefs about the emotional benefits of speeding as well as beliefs about its instrumental benefits.
Subjective Norms
There was no change in Subjective Norms for the sample as a whole between the baseline and third survey (after the first screening of the Subjective Norms ad). Several of the scores for individual referents changed significantly, in the direction of discouraging speeding, between the baseline and third survey, although others changed in the opposite direction, but these changes were not large enough to produce a change in overall Subjective Norms.
Individual item and composite Subjective Norms scores for those who had seen the ad were then compared with the scores for those who had not. Those who saw the ad displayed significantly more negative scores at the third survey compared to the baseline for two of the referents, ‘boss’ and ‘people you work with’, i.e. they perceived them as more disapproving of speeding, while those who did not see the ad displayed no changes for any of the referents. At the fourth survey, those who had seen the ad displayed significant changes in normative beliefs scores for five of the referents. Three referents were perceived as more disapproving of speeding: ‘boss’, ‘people you work with’ and ‘a competent driver’, while two referents, ‘father’ and ‘mother’, were perceived as less disapproving of speeding. Those who had not seen the ad at the fourth survey displayed only one significant change, perceiving ‘the police’ as less disapproving of speeding. Overall, the analysis suggests that the ad had, at best, only a weak effect on Subjective Norms.
PBC
There was no change in PBC scores between baseline and fourth survey (after the PBC ad). Some minor changes were observed in scores for the items which make up PBC, although these were in both anti- and pro-speeding directions. There was an unclear relationship between these minor changes and awareness of the advertising, i.e. some favourable changes were found in those who both had and had not seen the ad, as were some unfavourable changes. Overall, the PBC ad did not appear to have affected PBC.
Behavioural intentions and reported behaviour
Behavioural intentions displayed no significant changes between baseline and any subsequent survey stage, and there was no evidence of any association with campaign awareness. Reported frequency in the last 12 months of speeding ‘on a 30 m.p.h. road’ appeared to decrease significantly between the baseline and third survey and between the baseline and fourth survey. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed no significant interaction between awareness of any of the ads and reported speeding behaviour on a 30 m.p.h. road.
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Discussion |
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The TPB provides a useful model for explaining, and potentially for changing, health behaviours. However, there is little guidance in the large body of TPB research on how to use the model to change behaviour (Quine et al., 2001
). Many ‘TPB intervention studies’ use the TPB as a tracking device to assess intervention effectiveness, rather than (also) as a tool for developing the intervention, or they use TPB to design messages, but do not evaluate the impact of those messages on the TPB's behavioural predictors (Hardeman et al., 2002). Both theoretical and practical accounts of the process of using the TPB to develop and evaluate an intervention are rare (Ajzen, undated; Hardeman et al., 2002; Sutton, 2002). This study helps to address this gap by providing an account of the process adopted in the Foolsspeed campaign. Time constraints did not allow baseline TPB data to be analysed before the start of the campaign in order to identify key determinants and beliefs to target in the advertising. However, the process which was adopted—consultation of existing TPB literature on speeding to identify key salient beliefs and predictors of speeding, plus formative consumer research to provide guidance on campaign tone and style—represented a useful real-world compromise.
The study demonstrates that it is possible to design behaviour change advertising which is both underpinned by rigorous theory and which works in communication terms. Too many health mass media campaigns lack a sound theoretical basis guiding their formulation of objectives and messages (Maibach and Parrott, 1995; Witte, 1997). The Foolsspeed evaluation demonstrates that it is possible to design advertising which is explicitly underpinned by proven theoretical constructs.
Equally, an appropriate theory base is insufficient if the advertising is not, first of all, capable of standing out in a cluttered commercial advertising environment and of triggering desired cognitive and emotional responses (TAC, 2002). Careful pre-testing of each Foolsspeed ad increased the likelihood that the ads would be memorable and engaging, and this was borne out by the evaluation data: the ads were remembered, understood and largely enjoyed; triggered feelings of identification and empathy; and encouraged drivers to reflect on and feel dissonance about their own driving. Because most drivers assume they are better than average, there is a tendency to discount road safety advertising as aimed at ‘other drivers worse than me’ (Walton and McKeown, 2001). Driver behaviour campaigns need to cut through this attitudinal bias. Encouragingly, with Foolsspeed, it was drivers who were most in need of the campaign's messages—frequent speeders—who identified most strongly with the ads and were most strongly challenged by them to reassess their own driving behaviour.
The study also demonstrates the value of using TPB to understand and change driving behaviour. Anti-speeding advertising explicitly underpinned by the TPB was moderately effective in changing some of the psychological determinants of speeding. We found desired changes over the campaign period in Attitude to the behaviour and its associated constructs, Positive and Negative Affective Beliefs, and nearly all of these changes were significantly associated with awareness of the Attitude ad. In other words the Foolsspeed ad designed to challenges drivers' attitudes towards speeding did indeed influence beliefs about both the instrumental consequences of speeding and its emotional benefits and drawbacks.
Less encouragingly, there was no evidence that the campaign effected substantial changes in Subjective Norms or PBC, or in behavioural intentions and reported behaviour. A number of explanations are possible. One is that the Attitude ad may have been conceptually stronger and more persuasive than the other two ads, with the result that it influenced its targeted TPB component while they did not. The Attitude ad was also the earliest of the three ads to be screened, so may have benefited from cumulative exposure effects (it was repeated each subsequent year of the campaign). Another explanation may be that Subjective Norms and PBC are less susceptible to change, by communications means alone, than Attitude because they comprise external as well as internal dimensions (Manstead, 1991; Conner and Sparks, 1995).
The results must also be read in light of the study's methodological limitations. A 4-year cohort study will be affected by attrition and the possibility that remaining respondents became sensitized or ‘contaminated’ cannot be ruled out. The fact that reported speeding behaviour apparently reduced significantly over the course of the study may indicate an increasing tendency to give socially desirable responses. Related to this point, reported frequency of speeding represents a weak behaviour measure. Actual speeding behaviour as tracked using speeding cameras and numbers of fines issued would have represented a far stronger measure of the campaign's impact on real behaviour, although this was beyond the capacity of the study.
Overall, the study highlights a number of implications both for future TPB research and for the design of effective driver behaviour interventions. Firstly, in terms of TPB research, the study adds to the evidence base concerning the TPB's ability to explain driving behaviour. The TPB as operationalized in this study was able to predict similar proportions of variance in speeding behaviour to those found in other applications of the TPB to speeding [e.g. (Parker et al., 1992; Stradling and Parker, 1996)]. The predictive strength of the TPB remained consistent when measured cross-sectionally, at four separate survey stages; furthermore, the model was able to predict a moderate amount of variance in speeding intentions and behaviour four years later. Few studies have examined the TPB's performance longitudinally; this study suggests that its predictive strength remains consistent and robust over time.
Second, the study suggests that further investigation is needed into ‘Affective Beliefs’ as an extension to the TPB. Although none of the Foolsspeed ads were specifically designed to address Affective Beliefs, significant changes in these beliefs were associated with seeing the Attitude ad, which suggests that it tapped into and challenged beliefs about the emotional benefits and drawbacks of speeding. The interaction between Affective Beliefs and Attitude within the TPB merits further study.
Third, in intervention terms, the study demonstrates that it is possible to design consumer- and theory-based road safety advertising campaigns, and provides a model for doing so. It suggests that TPB interventions may have more success in changing attitudes than other determinants of intentions and behaviour, and that Affective Beliefs may be a particularly fruitful focus for intervention. Finally, the study adds to the emerging evidence that low-key empathetic and credible road safety advertising can perform as well as highly emotional graphic depictions of accidents (Donovan et al., 1999). It demonstrates that it is not necessary to use hard-hitting imagery and messages in order to engage drivers' attention and challenge their attitudes.
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Acknowledgments |
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The authors wish to thank the interviewers and supervisors responsible for the study fieldwork, and the Scottish Executive Social Research Unit and the Scottish Road Safety Campaign Driver Behaviour Strategy Working Group for guidance and support throughout the research. The study was funded by the Department for Transport, Scottish Executive and the Scottish Road Safety Campaign.
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Received on June 30, 2003; accepted on March 28, 2004
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