Measuring car pride and its implications for car ownership and use across individuals, cities, and countries

As the world recognizes that its growing reliance on private, fossil fuel-based vehicles is unsustainable, understanding how to avoid growth in car ownership and how to shift current users towards more efficient, environmentally-friendly, safe, and inclusive alternatives is a critical vision for meeting sustainable (transportation) development goals. Policy makers looking to shift consumer behavior away from cars need a more rigorous understanding of how different attitudes play a role in influencing car ownership and use and how this might vary by people and place. In this dissertation we provide deep insight into one of the many symbolic and affective motives behind car consumption: "car pride" or the attribution of social status and personal image to owning and using a car. Using data collected from individuals in two U.S.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Moody, Joanna C.(Joanna Charlotte)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jinhua Zhao.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123232

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/123232