The Long and the Short of It: Do Psychological Variables Predict Intentions to Reduce the Impact of Air Travel?

Abstract

Air travel is a major contributor of CO₂ emissions, and the aviation industry, along with the number of passengers on commercial aircraft, continues to grow. Thus, it is important to investigate ways to reduce the impact of flying on the environment. According to the low-cost hypothesis, psychological variables, such as attitudes and subjective norms, ought to be better predictors of low-cost, as opposed to high-cost, behaviors. The underlying hypothesis is that with increasing costs, represented by short- vs. long-haul trips, psychological variables from the theory of planned behavior would be less predictive of intentions to reduce the environmental impact of one's air travel. An online questionnaire was used to collect data from a convenience sample of 134 participants. Theory of planned behavior variables predicted intentions to reduce the impact of flying in relation to short- and long-haul trips equally well, as indicated by the overlapping 84 percent confidence intervals of R² from two multiple regression analyses. However, there was some evidence that people with strong intentions to reduce the impact of their travel planned to fly less on an upcoming trip than those with weak intentions. The ABC model offers a potential explanation for these findings.