Exploring the Cognitive and Affective Mechanisms Behind Subjective Assessments of Travel Amounts

Travel demand models focus on explaining how much individuals actually travel but offer no insight into how much individuals think they travel. The authors propose that the latter is an important determinant of traveler behavior, and that actual mobility is refracted through a variety of filters that magnify or diminish those subjective evaluations of travel amounts. Linear regression models of subjective mobility measures provided by 1,358 San Francisco Bay Area commuters were estimated earlier; the focus of this article is on identifying the potential cognitive and affective mechanisms that influence subjective mobility upward or downward, after controlling for objective mobility. The authors find three major types of mechanisms: awareness-heightening, affective, and comparison-inducing. Recurring patterns of effects in these three categories are analyzed in the light of psychological and marketing research concepts including the availability heuristic, social comparison, relative deprivation, autobiographical memory, and motivation theory.

[1]  L. Festinger.  A Theory of Social Comparison Processes , 1954 .

[2]  W. T. Norman,et al.  Toward an adequate taxonomy of personality attributes: replicated factors structure in peer nomination personality ratings. , 1963, Journal of abnormal and social psychology.

[3]  J. Chang,et al.  Analysis of individual differences in multidimensional scaling via an n-way generalization of “Eckart-Young” decomposition , 1970 .

[4]  D. Zillmann.  Excitation transfer in communication-mediated aggressive behavior , 1971 .

[5]  Daniel Kahneman,et al.  Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability , 1973 .

[6]  J. Ritchie.  An Exploratory Analysis of the Nature and Extent of Individual Differences in Perception , 1974 .

[7]  D. Canter,et al.  Distance Estimation in Cities , 1975 .

[8]  R. Byrne,et al.  Memory for Urban Geography , 1979 .

[9]  W. Jeffrey Burroughs,et al.  Retrieval processes in distance cognition , 1979 .

[10]  Edward K. Sadalla,et al.  An Information Storage Model for Distance Cognition , 1980 .

[11]  Edward K. Sadalla,et al.  The Perception of Traversed Distance , 1980 .

[12]  Edward K. Sadalla,et al.  DISTANCE COGNITION IN URBAN ENVIRONMENTS , 1981 .

[13]  F. Koppelman.  Non-linear utility functions in models of travel choice behavior , 1981 .

[14]  S. Fiske,et al.  Social Psychology , 2019, Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences.

[15]  Alan J Horowitz,et al.  Subjective value of time in bus transit travel , 1981 .

[16]  Jacob Hornik,et al.  The Use of Time: An Integrated Conceptual Model , 1981 .

[17]  L. Jacoby.  Perceptual enhancement: persistent effects of an experience. , 1983, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[18]  Rashi Glazer.  Multiattribute Perceptual Bias as Revealing of Preference Structure , 1984 .

[19]  Edward L. Deci,et al.  Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior , 1975, Perspectives in Social Psychology.

[20]  James M. Olson,et al.  Relative deprivation and social comparison , 1986 .

[21]  J. C. Masters,et al.  Social comparison, social justice, and relative deprivation : theoretical, empirical, and policy perspectives , 1987 .

[22]  K. Miller,et al.  Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior , 1975, Perspectives in Social Psychology.

[23]  S. Kitayama,et al.  Interaction between affect and cognition in word perception. , 1990, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[24]  F. Strack,et al.  Ease of retrieval as information: Another look at the availability heuristic. , 1991 .

[25]  Raymond W. Novaco,et al.  Home environmental consequences of commute travel impedance , 1990, American journal of community psychology.

[26]  James J. Kellaris,et al.  The influence of music on consumers' temporal perceptions: Does time fly when you're having fun? , 1992 .

[27]  John L. Crompton,et al.  Tourism cognitive distance: a set of research propositions. , 1992 .

[28]  Seymour Sudman,et al.  Autobiographical memory and the validity of retrospective reports , 1994 .

[29]  Curtis D. Hardin,et al.  Affect and Memory in Retrospective Reports , 1994 .

[30]  R. Petty,et al.  Measuring the Affective and Cognitive Properties of Attitudes: Conceptual and Methodological Issues , 1994 .

[31]  Kenneth R. Lord,et al.  The impact of membership fees on consumer attitude and choice , 1998 .

[32]  D. Green,et al.  MISPERCEPTIONS ABOUT PERCEPTUAL BIAS , 1999 .

[33]  K. Matheson,et al.  Perceiving and Responding to the Personal/Group Discrimination Discrepancy , 1999 .

[34]  D. Myers.  Social psychology, 6th ed. , 1999 .

[35]  Richard W Curry.  ATTITUDES TOWARD TRAVEL : THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG PERCEIVED MOBILITY TRAVEL LIKING, AND RELATIVE DESIRED MOBILITY , 2000 .

[36]  Lothlorien S. Redmond.  Identifying and Analyzing Travel-Related Attitudinal, Personality, and Lifestyle Clusters in the San Francisco Bay Area , 2000 .

[37]  J. Groeger.  Understanding Driving: Applying Cognitive Psychology to a Complex Everyday Task , 2000 .

[38]  Elena Karahanna,et al.  Time Flies When You're Having Fun: Cognitive Absorption and Beliefs About Information Technology Usage , 2000, MIS Q..

[39]  Lothlorien S. Redmond,et al.  Understanding the Demand for Travel: It's Not Purely 'Derived' , 2001 .

[40]  D. Hensher.  The valuation of commuter travel time savings for car drivers: evaluating alternative model specifications , 2001 .

[41]  P. Mokhtarian,et al.  Determinants of Subjective Assessments of Personal Mobility , 2002 .

[42]  Michael D. Silver,et al.  The Impact of Assimilation and Differentiation Needs on Perceived Group Importance and Judgments of Ingroup Size , 2002 .

[43]  Viswanath Venkatesh,et al.  User Acceptance Enablers in Individual Decision Making About Technology: Toward an Integrated Model , 2002, Decis. Sci..

[44]  Blake M. McKimmie,et al.  I'm a hypocrite, but so is everyone else: Group support and the reduction of cognitive dissonance , 2003 .

[45]  Consumers’ Evaluations of Time-Delayed Purchase Opportunities , 2003 .

[46]  Jolanda Jetten,et al.  The Individual Within the Group: Balancing the Need to Belong With the Need to Be Different , 2004, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

[47]  P. Mokhtarian,et al.  TTB or not TTB, that is the question: a review and analysis of the empirical literature on travel time (and money) budgets , 2004 .

[48]  Patricia L. Mokhtarian,et al.  What type of vehicle do people drive? The role of attitude and lifestyle in influencing vehicle type choice - eScholarship , 2004 .

[49]  Patrlcla,et al.  How derived is the demand for travel ? Some conceptual and measurement considerations , 2004 .

[50]  Lothlorien S. Redmond,et al.  When is Commuting Desirable to the Individual , 2004 .

[51]  Sangho Choo,et al.  Wanting to travel, more or less: Exploring the determinants of the deficit and surfeit of personal travel , 2004 .

[52]  S. Reiss.  Multifaceted Nature of Intrinsic Motivation: The Theory of 16 Basic Desires , 2004 .

[53]  R. Wener,et al.  Commuting Stress: Psychophysiological Effects of a Trip and Spillover into the Workplace , 2005 .

[54]  Yu-Chen Chen,et al.  Extrinsic versus intrinsic motivations for consumers to shop on-line , 2005, Inf. Manag..

[55]  J. Danckert,et al.  Time flies when you’re having fun: Temporal estimation and the experience of boredom , 2005, Brain and Cognition.

[56]  Jianhe Du,et al.  Modeling Stated and Revealed Route Choice: Consideration of Consistency, Diversion, and Attitudinal Variables , 2006 .

[57]  P. Mokhtarian,et al.  Subjective assessments of personal mobility: What makes the difference between a little and a lot? , 2007 .

[58]  Adam Kowol.  The theory of cognitive dissonance By , 2008 .

[59]  W. Greene,et al.  计量经济分析 = Econometric analysis , 2009 .