Psychological predictors of mobile phone use while crossing the street among college students: An application of the theory of planned behavior

ABSTRACT

Objective: As the prevalence of mobile phone use has increased globally, experts have verified the effects of mobile phone distraction on traffic safety. However, the psychological factors underlying pedestrians' decisions to use their mobile phones while crossing the street have received little attention.

Methods: The present study employed the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to investigate the psychological factors that influence pedestrians' intentions to use a mobile phone while crossing the street. The additional predictors of descriptive norms, moral norms, risk perception, mobile phone involvement, and perceived ability to compensate are included.

Results: Approximately 40% of participants reported having used a mobile phone while crossing during the previous week and 5.4% had been involved in crossing accidents due to mobile phone distractions. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed overall support for the predictive utility of the TPB. The standard TPB variables accounted for 13.3% of variance in intentions after demographic variables were controlled, and the extended predictors contributed an additional 7.6% beyond the standard constructs.

Conclusion: The current study revealed that attitude, perceived behavior control, descriptive norms, mobile phone involvement, and perceived ability to compensate all emerged as significant predictors of intentions. The findings could support the design of more effective safety campaigns and interventions to reduce pedestrians' distracted crossing behaviors.

KEYWORDS:

• Pedestrian
• mobile phone
• distraction
• road crossing
• theory of planned behavior

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51678211, 51578207, 51308177), the Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation (No. 1408085MG137), and the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (No. 20120111120021).