DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN BEHAVIOUR

Understanding The Development Of Human Behaviour

Abstract

This study is to examine cultural differences in risk perception and attitudes towards traffic safety and risk, taking behaviour in the Norwegian and the Ghanaian public. An additional aim is to discuss the applicability of various traffic measures, suited for low and middle income countries in Africa.

Sample: The results of the present study are based on two self-completion questionnaire surveys carried out in February and March 2006. The first was a representative sample of the Norwegian public above 18 years of age (N = 247). The second was a stratified sample of Ghanaian respondents (N = 299). In Ghana the data was collected in Accra and Cape Coast.

The results showed that there is potential for further improvement of safety attitudes and risk behaviour among Ghanaians as well as Norwegians. There were also differences in the respondents' evaluation of attitudes, risk perception and behaviour. Perceived risk and attitudes also significantly predicted risk behaviour and accidents/collisions. The implications of these results for traffic safety will be discussed.

Introduction

There are several approaches to reducing traffic accidents. Some examples are enforcing stricter traffic regulations, improvement of roads and environment and education. However, it has been argued that improvement of roads results in a reduction of traffic risk perception (Summala, 1996). Improvements of roads and cars may actually cause an increase in traffic accidents because drivers increase speed and are less careful. Human error may account for about 90% of all traffic accidents (Rumar, 1985). It is reasonable to assume that it would be effective to apply psychological interventions in traffic safety campaigns to reduce traffic accidents. Rundmo (1999) argues that if risk perception affects behaviour, then it would be possible to change behavioural patterns through influence of risk perception. It would be interesting to examine whether similar strategies to reduce traffic accidents could efficiently be applied cross-culturally, or whether new strategies should be developed and tested locally. It is reasonable to assume that attitudes towards and risk perception of traffic differs in different cultures. It is also possible that there are differences across cultures in how important different factors are for behaviour.

Literature Review

We know that attitudes are great predictors of behaviour in high-income countries (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Iversen and Rundmo, 2004). Consequently it has also been suggested that attitudes indirectly affect involvement in traffic accidents (West et al., 1993). Rundmo (1995, 1997) found that safety attitudes were related to both risk perception and behaviour. Results from Jonah (1986) suggest that risk-taking behaviour in traffic was the most important variable for involvement in traffic accidents. Accordingly, knowledge of how people perceive and understand risks related to traffic is of importance in order to understand differences in driver behaviour. Studies carried out previously have given support to the idea that traffic safety campaigns aimed to improve driver behaviour would benefit from involving psychological knowledge of how individuals perceive risks related to traffic (Oltedal et al., 2004). The present study includes several measures of risk perception: measures of traffic risk perception, risk sensitivity ...