Exploring attitude-behaviour dynamics during COVID-19: How fear of infection and working from home influence train use and the attitude toward this mode.

Research on the relationships between travel-related attitudes and travel behaviour has recently been reinvigorated by new theorizing as well as new empirical models. While traditional theories assume a rather static role of attitudes, i.e. acting as stable predispositions that cause behaviours in a unidirectional manner, recent models assume that attitudes and behaviours mutually influence each other over time. This study aims at better understanding attitude-behaviour dynamics by capitalizing on the circumstances presented by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It assesses how the fear of COVID-19 infection and (the attitude towards) working-from-home influence train use as well as train use attitudes. To explore the (within-person) reciprocal relationships between these variables, random-intercept cross-lagged panel models were estimated using a 4-wave longitudinal dataset collected during the COVID-19 pandemic from a large panel of train travellers in the Netherlands. The results indicate that train use and the attitude towards train use reciprocally influence each other. Those with stronger fears of infection in one wave tend to use the train less in a subsequent wave, but higher use of the train in one wave also reduces the fear of infection in the next. We also found that working from home (WFH) and travelling by train operate as substitutes for one another. Moreover, people who work from home frequently become more fearful of infection. All the findings are consistent with cognitive dissonance theory that people develop attitudes that align with their behaviours. The paper concludes with several policy implications related to changing attitudes and promoting train use.

Stepping into the shoes of the policy maker: Results of a Participatory Value Evaluation for the Dutch long term COVID-19 strategy.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 outbreak early 2020 was followed by an unprecedented package of measures. The relative calmness of the pandemic early 2022 provides a momentum to prepare for various scenarios. OBJECTIVES: As acceptance of COVID-19 measures is key for public support we investigated citizens' preferences towards imposing measures in four scenarios: 1) spring/summer scenario with few hospitalizations; 2) autumn/winter scenario with many hospitalizations; 3) a new contagious variant, the impact on hospitalizations is unclear; 4) a new contagious variant, hospitalizations will substantially increase. METHODS: Study 1 comprised a Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) in which 2011 respondents advised their government on which measures to impose in the four scenarios. Respondents received information regarding the impact of each measure on the risk that the health system would be overloaded. To triangulate the results, 2958 respondents in Study 2 evaluated the acceptability of the measures in each scenario. RESULTS: Measures were ranked similarly by respondents in Study 1 and 2: 1) the majority of respondents thought that hygiene measures should be upheld, even in the spring/summer; 2) the majority supported booster vaccination, working from home, encouraging self-testing, and mandatory face masks from scenario 2 onwards; 3) even in scenario 4, lockdown measures were not supported by the majority. Young respondents were willing to accept more risks for the health system than older respondents. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that policies that focus on prevention (through advising low-impact hygiene measures) and early response to moderate threats (by scaling up to moderately restrictive measures and boostering) can count on substantial support. There is low support for lockdown measures even under high-risk conditions, which further emphasizes the importance of prevention and a timely response to new threats. Our results imply that young citizens' concerns, in particular, should be addressed when restrictive COVID-19 measures are to be implemented.

Why Are General Moral Values Poor Predictors of Concrete Moral Behavior in Everyday Life? A Conceptual Analysis and Empirical Study.

Within moral psychology, theories focusing on the conceptualization and empirical measurement of people's morality in terms of general moral values -such as Moral Foundation Theory- (implicitly) assume general moral values to be relevant concepts for the explanation and prediction of behavior in everyday life. However, a solid theoretical and empirical foundation for this idea remains work in progress. In this study we explore this relationship between general moral values and daily life behavior through a conceptual analysis and an empirical study. Our conceptual analysis of the moral value-moral behavior relationship suggests that the effect of a generally endorsed moral value on moral behavior is highly context dependent. It requires the manifestation of several phases of moral decision-making, each influenced by many contextual factors. We expect that this renders the empirical relationship between generic moral values and people's concrete moral behavior indeterminate. Subsequently, we empirically investigate this relationship in three different studies. We relate two different measures of general moral values -the Moral Foundation Questionnaire and the Morality As Cooperation Questionnaire- to a broad set of self-reported morally relevant daily life behaviors (including adherence to COVID-19 measures and participation in voluntary work). Our empirical results are in line with the expectations derived from our conceptual analysis: the considered general moral values are poor predictors of the selected daily life behaviors. Furthermore, moral values that were tailored to the specific context of the behavior showed to be somewhat stronger predictors. Together with the insights derived from our conceptual analysis, this indicates the relevance of the contextual nature of moral decision-making as a possible explanation for the poor predictive value of general moral values. Our findings suggest that the investigation of morality's influence on behavior by expressing and measuring it in terms of general moral values may need revision.

Train travel in corona time: Safety perceptions of and support for policy measures.

To minimize the risk of becoming infected by the Coronavirus while traveling by train, the national government and the Dutch railways' operator (NS) in the Netherlands have taken several policy measures. These involve that passengers have to wear masks and guidelines are issued for working at home and teaching online. In addition, other policy measures, such as introducing a reservation system, were considered. To examine to what extent train travelers support policy measures and how these change their perception of becoming infected while traveling by train, a stated preference experiment is conducted. Respondents were asked to evaluate various combinations of policy measures, both whether they consider it safe to travel by train under the stated conditions and whether they would vote in favor of the policy package in a referendum. To analyze the data, a mediation choice model is developed, which allows disentangling the direct effect of the policy measures on support and the indirect effect mediated by infection safety perception. To illustrate this, the results show that implementing the policy measure teaching on campus with later starting times would decrease travelers' infection safety perception and therefore indirectly decrease its support. However, the positive direct effect on support suggests that travelers like this option better than teaching online, the guideline that applied at the time of data collection. The direct and indirect effects cancel each other out, indicating that this alternative policy measure would not count on more support than the guideline teaching online. Furthermore, this paper examines the heterogeneity in the support for policy measures by presenting and discussing the results of a Latent Class Choice Model. Amongst others, the results reveal that one class strongly supports the policy measure reservation system, while another class stongly opposes this measure, suggesting that implementing this measure is not trivial as suggested by its moderate effects at the aggregate level.

Working from home during the corona-crisis is associated with higher subjective well-being for women with long (pre-corona) commutes.

Much research has been devoted to assessing the effect of commute duration on the subjective well-being of people, but as of yet, the respective body or research has been inconclusive as to whether there is indeed a (large) negative effect or not. To control the spread of COVID-19 governments around the world have taken unprecedented measures to control the outbreak of the Corona-virus. Forcing or strongly advising people to work from home (i.e. at least those who can) is often one of these. The ensuing situation can be considered a natural experiment; the government's intervention effectively cancels people's commuting trip and can be considered completely exogenous. Should commuting time indeed have an adverse effect on well-being, it may be expected that those workers with long (pre-corona) commutes who have transitioned to working from home will experience an increase in their well-being. This idea is tested by combining several surveys -timed before and after the crisis- from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social sciences (LISS) panel, a panel that is representative of the Dutch population. In line with expectations, the results indicate that workers with a long commuting duration who transitioned to working from home indeed increased their subjective well-being. However, this effect was found to be significant only for women and not for men. A more general finding of interest is that subjective well-being did not change much between the measurements before and during the corona-crisis.