Predicting adolescent pedestrians’ behavioral intentions to follow the masses in risky crossing situations

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2009.12.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Adolescent pedestrians are a major population at risk of being killed or injured in traffic accidents, especially in developing countries. In the current study, we examined the effects of age, gender, sensation seeking, and conformity tendency on Chinese adolescent pedestrians’ intention to cross the road against a traffic signal. A sample of 510 adolescents, aged 12–19 years, completed a series of questionnaires comprising (1) a demographic questionnaire, (2) scales which measured their tendency towards social conformity and sensation seeking, and (3) a questionnaire based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), which measured their intention to cross the road in two different traffic scenarios. One scenario depicted a situation where the crossing was consistent with other pedestrians’ behavior (Conformity scenario). In the second scenario, the road crossing was inconsistent with other pedestrians (Non-conformity scenario). Along with behavioral intentions, attitudes towards the behavior, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, anticipated affect, moral norms, and perceived risk were also assessed. In general, adolescent participants reported greater likelihood in crossing the road when other pedestrians were crossing the road as well (Conformity with the masses) and adolescents in middle school were more likely to cross than those in high school. A hierarchical regression model explained 30% of the variance in behavioral intention in the Non-conformity scenario and 40% of the variance in the Conformity scenario. For both scenarios, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and anticipated affect emerged as common predictors. The theoretical and practical implications for these results are discussed.

Introduction

Adolescent pedestrians (generally 12–19 years old) are a major population at risk of being killed or injured in traffic accidents in the world. Among developing countries, China had the highest annual number of traffic-related fatalities and injuries (e.g., Pei & Wang, 2004). Many of these traffic incidents involved adolescent pedestrians. For example, in 2006, 1522 and 9280 adolescent pedestrians were killed and injured in China, respectively; and many of these traffic accidents occurred when adolescent pedestrians were crossing the roads (CRTASR, 2007). The number of traffic accidents involving adolescent pedestrians is also very high in other developing countries (e.g., Mabunda et al., 2008, Poudel-Tandukar et al., 2006).

In addition to driver-centered causes for pedestrian-involved crashes (e.g., the driver failed to see the pedestrian), many crashes are due to errors or risky behaviors on the part of the pedestrian. For example, researchers have reported that children often do not have the requisite perceptual or cognitive skills to cross the road in a safe manner (Demetre and Gaffin, 1994, Pei and Wang, 2004). For adolescents whose perceptual or cognitive abilities were relatively well developed compared to children, fatalities in road crossing may due in part to their failure to deploy these skills that contributes to the increased vulnerability. (Evans & Norman, 2003), personality characteristics, or other social influences (e.g., conformity) arising from other pedestrians, especially their peers (typically, school aged children and adolescents travel to and from school in groups).

Previous studies have shown that personality variables such as sensation seeking, risk perception and risk taking, accident proneness, aggression, and hostility are related to risky driving behaviors, particularly for young or adolescent drivers (e.g., Deery and Fildes, 1999, Machin and Sankey, 2008, Schwebel et al., 2006, Vavrik, 1997). An important personality trait, conformity, is characterized by a willingness or tendency or intention to follow others’ ideas, values, and behaviors, as well as to avoid conflict with others (Mehrabian and Stefl, 1995, Santor et al., 2000). In the context of road crossing behavior, following the behavior of others may be an important reason why pedestrians would choose a risky crossing at signalized intersection (e.g., Hamed, 2001, Wu and Huang, 2006). Along these lines, Zhou, Horrey, et al. (2009) found that people reported that they would be more likely to cross against a traffic signal if other pedestrians were doing so, compared to a similar situation in which other pedestrians were complying with traffic regulations. They also found that people who showed greater tendencies towards social conformity had stronger crossing intentions than low conformity people for risky scenario. These collective results tend to support the anecdotal observation that group crossings against red signal crosswalk are a very common behavior in Beijing (e.g., PSCFB, 2006).

Another personality characteristic, sensation seeking, has been shown to be an important determinant of risky behavior. Sensation seeking personality is described by the need for varied, novel, complex, and intense sensation and experiences (Zuckerman, 1994) and has been associated to different aspects of driving behavior in numerous traffic safety studies – those who are high in sensation seeking are more likely to drive in risky manners. (e.g., Rimmö and Åberg, 1999, Schwebel et al., 2006). With respect to road crossing behavior, some studies have examined the impact of sensation seeking on risky road crossings for both children and adults (e.g., Rosenbloom, 2006, Rosenbloom and Wolf, 2002). For example, Rosenbloom (2006) found that adults who had stronger tendencies towards sensation seeking were more likely to cross the road against a red light. Rosenbloom and Wolf (2002) also found that sensation-seeking levels could also predict success and leniency in road crossing. Moreover, these studies of pedestrian behavior studies have examined sensation seeking as an age and gender-dependent disposition (e.g., Rosenbloom, 2006, Rosenbloom and Wolf, 2002).

Previous work has used the theory of planned behavior – TPB (Ajzen, 1991) to examine pedestrians’ intentions to cross the road in risky situations. The TPB states that behavioral intentions are predictive of actual behaviors and are influenced by attitudes towards the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control (here, we refer to these three variables as the standard TPB variables). Other researchers have extended the TPB to include additional variables of perceived risk, moral norms, anticipated affect, and self identity (we refer to these as the extended TPB variables; Díaz, 2002, Evans and Norman, 1998, Evans and Norman, 2003, Holland and Hill, 2007, Zhou et al., 2009a).

Some of the studies that have used TPB to explore pedestrian crossing behavior are summarized in Table 1. As shown in the table, the standard TPB behaviors tend to be strong, significant predictors of road-crossing intentions. Furthermore, the collective results from these studies suggest that younger people are generally more likely to intend to cross the road in risky situations (Díaz, 2002, Evans and Norman, 1998, Holland and Hill, 2007, Zhou et al., 2009a), which is consistent with findings employing other research methodologies (e.g., Hamed, 2001). Additionally, perceived risk, moral norms, and anticipated affect (referred to here as the extended TPB variables) have also been shown to be predictive of road-crossing intentions. In a recent paper, Zhou, Horrey, et al. (2009) found that tendency towards conformity was predictive of crossing intentions in a situation depicting conformity with other pedestrians. To date, no studies have used the TPB to explore adolescent pedestrian road-crossing intentions in China, in conjunction with conformity tendency and sensation seeking.

In the current study, we seek to extend the findings from Zhou, Horrey, et al. (2009) to an adolescent population in China. Specifically, we examine middle and high school students’ decisions to cross road in risky traffic situations. We focused on crossing the road against the traffic signal at intersections. Evans and Norman (1998) found respondents reported a stronger intention to cross against the signal (‘red man’) than they did for the other two road crossing situations. Guerrier and Jolibois (1998) carried out an observational study in Miami, and found most pedestrian–vehicle conflicts occurred in the crosswalk. In these situations, the vehicle was at fault only in 29% of the time, with the remaining conflicts caused by pedestrians (71%). Wu and Huang (2006) also conducted a field survey, 1498 pedestrians were observed at one signalized intersection in Beijing, and found that approximately 85% of pedestrians crossed against the signal.

Thus, the main goals of this study were to:

  • 1.

    Examine the role of age and gender group in intentions to cross the road against the traffic lights in situations that depict: (i) behaviors that are consistent with the behavior of others (i.e., conformity with masses) and (ii) behaviors that are inconsistent with the behavior of others (i.e., Non-conformity).

  • 2.

    Investigate whether different age and gender groups differ in their conformity tendency, sensation seeking, and standard and extended TPB variables.

  • 3.

    Address the extent to which road-crossing intentions of adolescents can be predicted by the standard TPB variables (i.e., attitude, subjective norm, and perceived control), gender, personality traits (conformity and sensation seeking) and additional variables (i.e., affective affect, moral norms, and perceived risk).

Section snippets

Participants

Three schools, each located in one of the eight major city zones in Beijing, were randomly selected and invited to participate in the study. None of the schools had any formal traffic safety education curriculum. In each school, the first author visited a teacher who was giving curriculum to both middle grades and high grades. Each teacher was introduced to the aims of the research and given a set of standard instructions. The teacher explained the format of questionnaire to the students in his

ANOVA results and correlations

We examined differences in age, gender, and scenario type with respect to road-crossing intentions and several other variables using a series of mixed ANOVAs (Study aims 1 and 2). Here, we used grade level (middle vs. high school) as a proxy for age. The results are summarized in Table 4, which presents the significant main and interaction effects. There were no significant effects of gender, grade level, and scenario on respondents’ tendency towards sensation seeking.

As shown in Fig. 1, there

Discussion

In the current work, we examined Chinese adolescents’ intentions to cross street in a risky situation using the TPB coupled with other variables. The results showed that adolescent pedestrians had stronger road-crossing intentions when other pedestrians in the scenario were behaving in a consistent manner (i.e., Conformity scenario) than in a situation where the behavior was not consistent with that of others (Non-conformity scenario). A predictive model based on TPB theory accounted for 30%

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC, 30800304), and was also granted financial support from LanTianXinXing Program of Beihang University. We are grateful to Dr. Ruifeng Yu for earlier discussion on data collection. Thanks to Dr. Changxu Wu for comments and wording correction regarding earlier versions of this paper. Thanks also to Marvin Dainoff for his helpful comments and suggestions regarding earlier versions of this paper.

References (31)

Cited by (90)

View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text