Car pride and its bidirectional relations with car ownership: Case studies in New York City and Houston
Moody and Zhao, 2019, in Transportation Research Part A
doi:10.1016/j.tra.2019.04.005
Location |
New York City MSA/Houston MSA |
Population |
Other (specify) |
Sample size |
1236 |
Factor analysis type |
confirmatory factor analysis, nan rotation |
Stepwise regression |
no |
Removal of insignificant variables |
no |
Reviewed by |
MWC |
Abstract
The car fulfills not only instrumental transportation functions, but also holds important symbolic and affective meaning for its owners and users. In particular, owning and using a car can be a symbol of an individual's social status or personal image (‘car pride’). This paper introduces and validates a standard measure of car pride estimated from 12 survey statements using a cross-sectional sample of 1236 commuters in New York City and Houston metropolitan statistical areas. We find that car pride is higher in Houston than in New York City. We then empirically examine the bidirectional relation between car pride (attitude) and household car ownership (behavior) using structural equation modeling. To identify the bidirectional relationship we use an individual's general pride as the instrumental variable (IV) for that same individual's car pride; in the opposite direction, we use the average household vehicle ownership in the respondent's census block group as the IV for the respondent's household car ownership. We find that positive and statistically significant relations exist from car pride to car ownership, while the relation in the reverse direction is not statistically significant. On average and in both city subsamples, the relation from car pride to household car ownership (attitude-to-behavior) is much stronger than the reverse (behavior-to-attitude). In fact, in our models car pride is more predictive of car ownership than most individual and household socio-demographics included in traditional ownership forecasting models, including income. Empowered with a well-validated, standard measure for car pride and a robust approach for exploring reciprocal attitude-behavior relations in cross-sectional data, future research can extend the current understanding presented in this paper to explore car pride's relation with other travel behaviors, the dynamics of these attitude-behavior relations over time, and their implications for policies to promote sustainable travel behavior. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd
Factors
Models
Source variable |
Target variable |
Effect |
p-value |
Effect type |
Age |
Car pride |
-0.028 |
0.0 |
direct_effect |
Female |
Car pride |
-0.352 |
0.0 |
direct_effect |
Caucasian |
Car pride |
0.115 |
0.156 |
direct_effect |
Education (years after high school) |
Car pride |
0.006 |
0.644 |
direct_effect |
Full time employed |
Car pride |
-0.038 |
0.647 |
direct_effect |
Student |
Car pride |
-0.557 |
0.0 |
direct_effect |
Number of people in HH |
Car pride |
0.147 |
0.0 |
direct_effect |
Number of HH working adults |
Car pride |
-0.07 |
0.029 |
direct_effect |
HH income (thousands) |
Car pride |
0.002 |
0.046 |
direct_effect |
New York City |
Car pride |
-0.216 |
0.024 |
direct_effect |
Car owner |
Car pride |
-0.05 |
0.481 |
direct_effect |
General authentic pride |
Car pride |
0.322 |
0.0 |
direct_effect |
Age |
Car owner |
0.015 |
0.003 |
direct_effect |
Female |
Car owner |
-0.114 |
0.369 |
direct_effect |
Caucasian |
Car owner |
0.14 |
0.235 |
direct_effect |
Education (years after high school) |
Car owner |
0.018 |
0.368 |
direct_effect |
Full time employed |
Car owner |
0.085 |
0.523 |
direct_effect |
Student |
Car owner |
0.114 |
0.603 |
direct_effect |
Number of people in HH |
Car owner |
0.138 |
0.014 |
direct_effect |
Number of HH working adults |
Car owner |
0.044 |
0.53 |
direct_effect |
HH income (thousands) |
Car owner |
0.007 |
0.0 |
direct_effect |
New York City |
Car owner |
-0.172 |
0.323 |
direct_effect |
Average vehicle ownership in home block grup |
Car owner |
0.888 |
0.0 |
direct_effect |
Car pride |
Car owner |
0.673 |
0.0 |
direct_effect |