Causal Relationships Between Transportation Attitudes and Behaviors: Uncovering Latent Segments within a Heterogeneous Population
Causal Relationships Between Transportation Attitudes and Behaviors: Uncovering Latent Segments within a Heterogeneous Population
Co-Principal Investigator: Sara Khoeini, Assistant Research Professor, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment
Project Duration: 12 months
Project Budget (Federal UTC Funds): $49,490
Project Budget (Cost-share): $40,000
Abstract
This project goal is unraveling the contemporaneous relationship that exists between attitudes and choice behaviors. Attitudes, perceptions, and preferences may shape behaviors; likewise, behavioral choices exercised by individuals may offer experiences that shape attitudes. While it is likely that these relationships play out over time, the question whether attitudes affect behaviors or behaviors affect attitudes at a specific cross-section in time remains unanswered and a fruitful area of inquiry. Various studies in the literature have explored this question, but have done so without explicitly recognizing the heterogeneity that may exist in the population. In other words, the causal structure at play at any point in time may differ across individuals, thus motivating the development of an approach that can account for the presence of multiple segments in the population, each following a different causal structure. Results suggest that there is considerable heterogeneity in the population with the contemporaneous causal structures in which behaviors shape attitudes more prevalent than those in which attitudes affect choice behaviors. These findings have important implications for transport modeling and policy development.