Constraints on environmental behaviour

The purpose of this study was to examine crucial predictors of driving frequency. In contrast to traditional psychological environmental research emphasizing primarily personal variables in explaining environmental behavior, the perspective taken in this article is that behavior is generally prevented by a host of constraints. Therefore, this study was aimed at identifying prevalent constraints inhibiting individuals from reducing their driving frequency. By means of questionnaire data collected from a sample of Swiss adults two classes of constraints were examined: (a) Subjective factors that were assumed to affect the preference for proenvironmental behavioral alternatives (sense of responsibility, perceived behavioral barriers); and (b) objective conditions that inhibit the performance of proenvironmental action (socio-demographic variables such as lack of automobile, place of residence, income). Multiple regression analyses indicated that subjective constraints explained a significant amount of variance in behavioral reports, but structural constraints also contributed to explaining variance. Theoretical and applied implications of examining constraints to which people are subjected to and implications for further research are discussed. (C) 1999 Academic Press.