Date of Award

2010

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts Honours

School

School of Psychology and Social Sciences

Faculty

Faculty of Computing, Health and Science

First Supervisor

Dr Cath Ferguson

Second Supervisor

Dr Ken Robinson

Abstract

Speeding is related to crashes. The motivational factors underlying speeding must be identified to inform road safety. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) suggests that behavioural intention is predicted by attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control. The present research was an attempted extension of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), in a speeding context. It was identified that the scales used in the TPB are not appropriately capturing emotion, and that the lack of emotion measures may be responsible for unaccounted for variance in intention. Questionnaires were developed based on Ajzen's (2006) and Bradley and Lang's (1999) methods. It was hypothesised, based on Bradley and Lang's (1999) theory that the incorporation of an additional measure of emotion utilising arousal, would account for increased variance associated with intention to speed. This was not supported, with arousal accounting for an additional 0.01% of variance. Furthermore it was hypothesised that past behaviour would account for increased variance associated with the intention to speed, which was supported. Past behaviour accounted for an additional 6.5% of intention variance. The traditional TPB model accounted for 53.2% of variance in speeding intention, with the proposed extended model accounting for a further 8.5% of variance in speeding intention. Past behaviour, attitude and perceived behavioural control were identified as the most influential predictors of intention. The thesis was concluded by outlining the theory, practice and policy implications, based upon the results. The methodological issues were considered and it was proposed that further research is needed examining emotion, arousal and their links to behavioural intention.

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