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Threatened Identities and Resistance to Change (2): Travel Behaviour

Overall aims

Following on from our early exploration of the ‘threatened identity hypothesis’ in relation to meat-eating, this project aimed to explore the same hypothesis as applied to travel behaviours. Specifically, it aimed to establish whether identity threats were present in attempts to change travel behaviour and secondly what influence threatened identities had on resistance to changes in travel behaviour.

Background

The risks of climate change are accepted by the majority of the population in the UK, but, clearly, mass behaviour change has not yet happened. Resistance to change is a factor contributing to this ‘value/action gap’. Therefore understanding more about resistance is important in order to minimise its effects as a barrier to more sustainable behaviour. The current research focused on transport, as an important contributor to GHG emissions in the UK. Recent research on transport has argued that driving a car not only meets instrumental requirements such as convenience and cost, but also serves symbolic needs, such as demonstrating status and prestige. Such needs can be seen as identity needs, that is, as supporting how one sees oneself. Our identities are central to who we are and thus must be protected. To protect the self, threats to identity will trigger psychological processes aimed at reducing threat and these processes may result in resistance to change.

Research questions and methods

The research programme comprised three survey-based studies, which examined the following research questions:

  • Are identities related to travel mode choice on regular journeys?
  • Are threats to identity related to resistance to change travel behaviour?
  • Can identity threat encourage people to change towards more sustainable travel?

Participants were UK working adults with school-age children. All owned a car, lived in urban or suburban locations with locally available public transport and earned over £25,000 per annum. All studies comprised a paper questionnaire, completed by participants in their home. Participant numbers ranged from 267 to 300.

Results

Study 1 found relationships of statistical significance between identities and travel mode, and provided evidence for the influence of multiple identities, both social and travel-related, on travel mode choice for regular journeys. Study 2 showed that identity threat contributed to resistance to change, beyond the predictive power of habitual travel choice, previous intention to change and psychological reactance. Study 3 found that, for specific scenarios, threats to identity contributed to intention to change travel mode choice, as we had hypothesised.

Implications

The research contributes to theoretical understanding by demonstrating that multiple identities are related to travel mode choice; that identity threat is a factor in resistance to change; and that threats to identity, in specific contexts, may lead to changed behaviour. Further work is need to explore what factors lead to change rather than resistance.

Policy implications include: messages demanding change may be experienced as identity threats and in fact increase resistance to change; appeals to identities beyond ‘green’ may be conducive to change; and approaches aimed at increasing sustainable behaviour should maintain or enhance the sense of self, in order to avoid triggering resistance.

Outputs

Gatersleben, B, N Murtagh, W Abrahamse 2012. Values, identity and pro-environmental behaviour. Contemporary Social Science, 9(4).

Murtagh, N, B Gatersleben and D Uzzell 2012. Identity threat and resistance to change: evidence and implications from transport-related behaviour. In R Jaspaland G Breakwell (Eds) Identity Process Theory: Identity, Social Action and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Murtagh, N, B Gatersleben and D Uzzell 2012. Threatened identities: change and resistance to change.In T Jackson and I Christie (Eds) Lifestyles, Values and the Environment. London: Earthscan/Routledge (forthcoming).

Murtagh, N, B Gatersleben and D Uzzell 2011. Resistance to change regular travel behaviour: self-identity threat, previous travel behaviour and psychological reactance. RESOLVE Working Paper Series 01-11. Guildford: University of Surrey.

Murtagh, N, B Gatersleben and D Uzzell 2010. Travel mode choice on regular journeys: identity centrality and salience. RESOLVE Working Paper Series 04-10. Guildford: University of Surrey.

Murtagh, N, B Gatersleben and D Uzzell 2012. Travel mode choice on regular journeys: identity centrality and salience. Transportation Research Part F (in press).

Murtagh, N, B Gatersleben and D Uzzell 2012. Self-identity threat and resistance to change: evidence on regular travel behaviour. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32(4):318-326.

Murtagh, N, B Gatersleben and D Uzzell 2012. When it comes to how I travel, who am I? The 5th International Conference on Traffic and Transport Psychology. Groningen. 29-31 August 2012.

Murtagh, N, B Gatersleben and D Uzzell (accepted). Identity, behaviour and resistance to change in regular travel.The 5th International Conference on Traffic and Transport Psychology. Groningen. 29-31 August 2012

Murtagh, N, B Gatersleben and D Uzzell 2011. Identity threat and resistance to change: I am the type of person who will only travel by car. Presentation at the RESOLVE Conference: Living Sustainably: values policies and practices. London, 15 June 2011.

Murtagh, N, B Gatersleben and D Uzzell 2010.Identity threat and resistance to change:  evidence in transport-related behaviour. The British Psychological Society Social Psychology Conference, Winchester, 7-9 September 2010.

Woodside, C 2011. It isn’t easy being green. Nature Climate Change 1(1):13–15.