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Eco-driving can be an effective strategy to save fuel and reduce CO2 emissions on the road. In the current study, we reason that personal norms are important predictors of eco-driving, and that they are activated when people are aware of environmental problems caused by behavior (problem awareness) and believe that they can contribute to the solution of the problem by changing behavior (outcome efficacy). Extending previous research, we aim at testing two antecedents of this norm activation process: values and environmental knowledge. Results revealed that in comparison with knowledge, values—in particular biospheric values—were strongly associated with the intention to eco-drive by being highly related to awareness of problems caused by car use, which in turn was associated with stronger outcome efficacy beliefs and personal norms for eco-driving. Findings indicate that values are more likely to be a motivational force for pro-environmental intentions than is environmental knowledge.

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High use of motorized vehicles is a major cause of CO 2 emissions, affecting the quality of the environment negatively. Employing policies that aim to reduce car use would be key to decrease transport-related emissions. However, such policies need to be accepted by the public to be successful. In the current paper, we examine whether support for car use reduction policies can be predicted by the Value-Belief-Norm theory (VBN;Stern, 2000), reflecting a process of value triggered norm-activation about reducing one's car use. Notably, we tested the VBN theory in Russia, which is a postsocialist country with a high car use and high transport-related CO 2 emissions. As expected, findings indicate that high endorsement of biospheric values is associated with high environmental concern, which is related to an increased awareness of environmental consequences of car use, and a high ascription of responsibility of one's own contribution to environmental problems related to car use. This process leads to strengthening personal norms to reduce own car use, which were associated with higher acceptability of car use reduction policies. The findings indicate that policies that aim at increased support for car use reduction in Russia could target biospheric values and activate personal norms.

Across 3 studies, we investigated whether visual complexity deriving from internally repeating visual information over many scale levels is a source of perceptual fluency. Such continuous repetition of visual information is formalized in fractal geometry and is a key-property of natural structures. In the first 2 studies, we exposed participants to 3-dimensional high-fractal versus low-fractal stimuli, respectively characterized by a relatively high versus low degree of internal repetition of visual information. Participants evaluated high-fractal stimuli as more complex and fascinating than their low-fractal counterparts. We assessed ease of processing by asking participants to solve effortful puzzles during and after exposure to high-fractal versus low-fractal stimuli. Across both studies, we found that puzzles presented during and after seeing high-fractal stimuli were perceived as the easiest ones to solve and were solved more accurately and faster than puzzles associated with the low-fractal stimuli. In Study 3, we ran the Dot Probe Procedure to rule out that the findings from Study 1 and Study 2 reflected differences in attentional bias between the high-fractal and low-fractal stimuli, rather than perceptual fluency. Overall, our findings confirm that complexity deriving from internal repetition of visual information can be easy on the mind.