Conventional wisdom suggests that reducing car consumption (ownership and use) requires addressing people’s attitudes, with the hope that changing mindsets will ultimately lead to shifts in behavior (car consumption reduction). Theoretical and cross-sectional empirical studies report that favorable attitudes towards cars explain car ownership and usership. However, it remains unclear which of these elements has a dominant (causal) effect on others over time. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), we conceptualize bidirectional effects between car owning attitudes, car ownership level and car usership among those who access at least a car in their households and test how and which element comes first in shaping the other elements over time. Employing a two-wave cross-lagged panel model on a large-scale sample (n = 17,222), and considering covariates (age, gender, number of children in household, disability, household size, job status, other modes use), the results reveal new insights into relationships between these elements. Our panel model reveals existence of bidirectional effects between these three variables. Interestingly, car ownership has the greatest effects on the two other elements. Unlike conventional wisdom, behavior (car consumption) influences attitudes larger than the reverse effect. Particularly, findings suggest that people with higher car ownership reduce their environmental attitudes than saying that people with higher environmental consideration will be likely to shed their cars.

Co-authors

Jillian Anable, University of Leeds