Are Attitudes Important in Travel Choice?

Abstract

A huge body of literature in social psychology describes 70 years of theory and experimentation relating attitudes to behavior. Much of it suggests a stronger causal link between choices and attitudes than that between attitudes and choices—attitude models conditioned on revealed choice explain more than knowledge of peoples' attitudes and determination of what choice they will make. Alternative analyses suggest that attitudinal and other data should be used to determine respondents' intentions rather than their desires to better predict behavior. Attitude studies are becoming more prevalent in the study of transportation behavior, but researchers vary in what kinds of attitudes are considered and how attitudes influence the transportation decision process. The social psychology literature is briefly highlighted, transportation applications are reviewed, and a case study is presented. Cognitive, affective, and behavioral attitudes help explain the intentions of those surveyed for the case study. These results and the literature suggest that attitudes are very important, but caution is recommended regarding survey wording and capturing behavior intentions. In addition, the results suggest that to explain behavior, a circular behavior process including attitudes is better at explaining choices compared with the use of only cognitive and affective attitudes.