Evidence that implementation intentions reduce drivers’ speeding behavior: Testing a new intervention to change driver behavior

Abstract

Implementation intentions have the potential to break unwanted habits and help individuals behave in line with their goal intentions. We tested the effects of implementation intentions in the context of drivers' speeding behavior. A randomized controlled design was used. Speeding behavior, goal intentions and theoretically derived motivational pre-cursors of goal intentions were measured at both baseline and follow-up (one month later) using self-report questionnaires. Immediately following the baseline questionnaire, the experimental (intervention) group (N=117) specified implementation intentions using a volitional help sheet, which required the participants to link critical situations in which they were tempted to speed with goal-directed responses to resist the temptation. The control group (N=126) instead received general information about the risks of speeding. In support of the hypotheses, the experimental group reported exceeding the speed limit significantly less often at follow-up than did the control group. This effect was specific to 'inclined abstainers' (i.e., participants who reported speeding more than they intended to at baseline and were therefore motivated to reduce their speeding) and could not be attributed to any changes in goal intentions to speed or any other measured motivational construct. Also in line with the hypotheses, implementation intentions attenuated the past-subsequent speeding behavior relationship and augmented the goal intention - subsequent speeding behavior relationship. The findings imply that implementation intentions are effective at reducing speeding and that they do so by weakening the effect of habit, thereby helping drivers to behave in accordance with their existing goal intentions. The volitional help sheet used in this study is an effective tool for promoting implementation intentions to reduce speeding.

Conditional or unconditional? The effects of implementation intentions on driver behavior.

“…Consistent with volitional help sheets that have been developed for other social behaviors (e.g., Armitage, 2008Armitage, , 2015, Brewster et al's (2015) volitional help sheet provides participants with a list of 20 separate critical situations in which drivers are known to regularly exceed the speed limit (e.g., Stradling, 2005) and 20 goal-directed responses (strategies for avoiding speeding) that are theoretically derived from Prochaska and DiClemente's (1983) processes of behavior-change. Each critical situation is 2 Consistent with Brewster et al, (2015), an ANOVA focusing only on the participants who were deemed unsuitable for inclusion in the final sample of this study confirmed that there was no difference between the conditions in subsequently measured speeding behavior on the driving simulator, F (3, 85) = 0.64, ns. Also note that a chi-square test showed there was no difference between the conditions in the number of participants who were excluded from the final analysis χ² (3, N = 89) = 1.95, ns.…”

“…Consequently, the true effect size of implementation intentions on behavior-change is likely to have been under-estimated in most previous studies. As demonstrated recently by Brewster et al (2015), implementation intentions only reduce speeding for participants who exceed the speed limit more than they intend to. Therefore, only those participants who reported speeding more than they intended to were included in the final sample in this study.…”

“…The critical situations from Brewster et al's (2015) volitional help sheet that were selected for use in the contextually similar and different conditions were chosen by two researchers (the first and second authors) who independently came to the same decisions about which ones were the most qualitatively similar and different to those used in the contextually identical condition. Qualitative assessments were used to decide which of the critical situations should be used in both the contextually similar and different conditions because the differences between the situations in which people typically perform real-world IMPLEMENTATION INTENTIONS 14 behaviors, such as speeding, are not readily quantifiable.…”

The theory of planned behavior (TPB) and texting while driving behavior in college students

“…These interventions may benefit from strategies used to break drivers’ unwanted habits such as implementation intention (if-then plans). 46,47 …”

Effect evaluation of a road safety education program based on victim testimonials in high schools in Belgium

“…By designating a specific if-then contingency between an environment and a plan of action (i.e., if situation X arises, I will perform behavior Y), individuals construct a mental association between a specific situational cue and the appropriate goal-directed behavior response, e.g., 'when accompanied by friends, I will wear my safety helmet when bicycling' instead of 'I will wear my safety helmet' (Baumeister and Vohs, 2004). Research has indicated that this method is effective in translating behavioral intentions into behavior because it allows people to pass control over their behavior to the environmental cues contained in the implementation intention (Brewster et al, 2015;Sheeran and Orbell, 1999).…”