The role of perceived legitimacy in understanding traffic rule compliance: A scoping review

Abstract

BackgroundPerceived legitimacy associated with rules and authorities is an important element for understanding and encouraging compliance with rules in the field of road safety, often more so than with a deterrence approach. Despite a growing interest in legitimacy in recent decades and in the psychological field in particular, its definitions and measurements appear to be heterogeneous, subject to debate and in need of a common theoretical framework. Therefore, one can expect these limitations to also concern the definitions and measurements of legitimacy in the field of road safety. However, no literature review related to this issue is currently available. This contribution therefore aims to fill this void by proposing a scoping review investigating, in the field of road safety, how legitimacy is defined, measured, related to compliance and what are its main determinants. MethodsA scoping review was conducted, based on research literature from eight databases and concerned with the perceived legitimacy of traffic rules or traffic enforcement and rule compliance or traffic violations. Twenty-six publications meeting inclusion criteria were retained. The characteristics and content of publications were analyzed to identify the relevant elements related to our research questions. Results and conclusionThe main results revealed that perceived legitimacy in the field of road safety can be related to different objects (i.e., traffic rules, traffic violations, traffic enforcement, institutions) that should be better delineated and differentiated in future research. While perceived legitimacy is generally associated with compliance with traffic rules, its theoretical definitions and measures in the field of road safety are heterogeneous and present validity issues which limit the comparability of studies and so the accumulation of knowledge for both theoretical research and road safety applications. No empirical study investigating the outcomes of perceived legitimacy beyond compliance was identified. Few empirical studies have investigated the determinants of perceived legitimacy. Most identified empirical studies were cross-sectional, which is a limitation to establishing causality in investigated relationships. Theoretical implications and research perspectives to improve studies on legitimacy in the field of road safety and develop a multidimensional model of the perceived legitimacy of traffic rules are therefore proposed and discussed.

The perceived effectiveness of penalties in traffic offender and non-offender groups: the role of the Dark Triad and Behavior Inhibition/Activation Systems

“…Perceived justice and the effectiveness of regulation measures on undesirable behaviors in society are related to the willingness to comply with the rules (Barkworth & Murphy, 2015;Bowers & Robinson, 2012). Therefore, it is expected that people will adhere more strictly to the traffic rules if they perceive the potential sanctions to be adequate and equal for every traffic user (Varet et al, 2021). The perceived legitimacy of safety regulations and sanctions has received increasing attention from scholars (Varet et al, 2021), but the effectiveness of traffic penalties remains an unresearched topic (Castillo-Manzano & Castro-Nuño, 2012;Castillo-Manzano et al, 2010;Du Plessis, Hartig, Jansen & Siebrits, 2020).…”

“…Therefore, it is expected that people will adhere more strictly to the traffic rules if they perceive the potential sanctions to be adequate and equal for every traffic user (Varet et al, 2021). The perceived legitimacy of safety regulations and sanctions has received increasing attention from scholars (Varet et al, 2021), but the effectiveness of traffic penalties remains an unresearched topic (Castillo-Manzano & Castro-Nuño, 2012;Castillo-Manzano et al, 2010;Du Plessis, Hartig, Jansen & Siebrits, 2020). Deterrence theory deals with the perception of punishment, and assumes that traffic penalties should serve as deterrent when they have three characteristics: certainty, severity, and celerity of punishment (Nagin, 2013).…”

Toward a multidimensional model of legitimacy: Validation of the Traffic Rules Perceived Legitimacy scale.

“…In Tyler et al (2015), perceived legitimacy was measured with a single-index scale mixing feeling of obligation to obey the police, moral alignment with the police, and moral alignment with the law. Varet et al (2021) argued that this point was problematic and that it would be preferable to focus on how best to define and measure the perceived legitimacy of a single object before investigating its possible generalization or adaptation to defining and measuring the perceived legitimacy of other objects. Subsequently, Varet et al (2021) focused their recommendations on defining the perceived legitimacy of traffic rules as this was the object most often considered in the studies they analyzed.…”

“…Varet et al (2021) argued that this point was problematic and that it would be preferable to focus on how best to define and measure the perceived legitimacy of a single object before investigating its possible generalization or adaptation to defining and measuring the perceived legitimacy of other objects. Subsequently, Varet et al (2021) focused their recommendations on defining the perceived legitimacy of traffic rules as this was the object most often considered in the studies they analyzed. Importantly, they suggested that the perceived legitimacy of traffic rules could be articulated around a multidimensional model.…”

“…In the present study, we propose to build on the theoretical proposal of Varet et al (2021), to complete it, and to test it empirically by developing and validating a multidimensional scale of the perceived legitimacy of traffic rules. Finally, based on the results obtained, we propose to discuss the generalizability of these contributions to the study of the perceived legitimacy of other objects within and beyond the field of road safety.…”