The massive use of motor vehicles goes along with serious ecological, social and economic problems. Because of the ongoing growth of motorised traffic, these problems are expected to increase during the coming decade. Besides technological measures aimed at making cars less polluting, an effective solution of these problems also requires reduction in the volume of car traffic, based on behaviour change of many individual car users. Policy strategies aimed at reducing car use are effective only if they are directed at modifying the main determinants of car use. Therefore, adequate knowledge about people's motives for car use is necessary. These motives may be explicitly cognitive-reasoned, but implicit affective and emotional motives may also play an important role. Car advertisements often refer to these affective consequences of car use. However, the behavioural significance of these affective motives for car use has hardly been studied. The first goal of this study is to develop a model to explain car use. The second goal is to demonstrate the results of three different methods designed to measure the implicit affective-emotional determinants of car use. Furthermore, the authors will examine which (cognitive-reasoned and affective-emotional) dimensions underlie the judgements of the (un)attractiveness of car use. Moreover, the authors will examine whether group differences exist in the extent to which car users evaluate the attractiveness of various aspects related to car use. Before a description is given of a model to explain car use, a short overview is given of studies about the motives of car use. Next, the three methods which were developed and tested are discussed and the main results will be presented and discussed. (A)
Abstract