Evaluation of the Crash Course March 2009 - De Montfort University

has also been suggested that risk-taking behaviour on the road may be deliberately
sought as part of identity formation and in response to normative pressure from
peers (e.g. Conner, Smith and McMillan, 2003). They may also assess risks taken
whilst driving as acceptable in pursuit of other goals such as driving after drinking to
meet a parental curfew (Harre, 2000). In other words, risk taking can be
instrumental: a means to an end.
Harre (2000) suggests that peer-resistance skills might be most effective at
addressing these issues and modifying risky behaviour but there remains the
problem of risk-seeking in itself being perceived as pleasurable and “propped up with
an entire social system of norms and media images that equate fast driving and
‘skilful’ manoeuvres with masculinity, adulthood, and peer group approval” (Harre,
2000; p.218). This type of deliberate risk-seeking has received less research than
the other issue discussed, and it seems likely it will also be the most challenging to
shift in adolescent road-users (Harre, 2000).
3.2 Attitude change and young people
A key set of questions to address when seeking to change behaviours such as risktaking
on the roads through changing attitudes is whether such attitude change will
actually be represented in changed behaviour and if so which attitudes predict which
behaviours. This is a far from straightforward issue. As Glassman and Albarracin
(2006) point out, social psychologists have for decades noted that “there is
considerable variability in the degree to which attitudes predict behavior” (p.778).
However, Glassman and Albarracin go on to outline a number of characteristics of
attitudes that lead them to be more predictive of behaviour. Attitudes are most likely
to influence actual behaviour when they are:
• Held with confidence
• Consistent
• Easily recalled
• Personally relevant
• Reported frequently
• Based on direct experience
• Associated with behavioural information
• Formed with a high motivation to think about the attitude object
(Glassman and Albarracin, 2006)
Relevant to the Crash Course aims, it is also noted that ‘hedonically-oriented’
behaviours – those associated with enjoyment, such as playing, or driving at speed
as a thrill-seeking behaviour – tend to be affectively driven (Millar and Tesser, 1992;
Millar and Millar, 1998; Glassman and Albarracin, 2006). That is, they are associated
with the affective or emotional component of attitudes to a greater degree than the
cognitive or informational component. This means that how people feel about the
relevant attitude-objects is likely to be more significant for their future behaviour than
what they know about them. This therefore suggests the use of a strategy of
concentrating on feelings relating to attitude-objects during attempts to change
people’s attitudes relating to hedonic behaviours.
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