The impact of outcome framing and psychological distance of air pollution consequences on transportation mode choice

Recent years, air pollution phenomenon has become one of the crucial problems of Tehran, Iran. Due to main political and economic role of Tehran, population of this metropolis is high and increasing. Urban transportation of this highly populated city contributes more than 70% of air pollution problem in this city. Although a number of urban transport developments, policy measures and regulations have been employed, Tehran's air pollution has remained crucial thus far. Finding ways to encourage individuals to behave more sustainable can be considered as a substantial approach of tackling environmental problems such as air pollution, since it can be highly cost-effective and fast. This research attempt to evaluate the impacts of two factors of outcome framing and psychological distance of air pollution on citizen's willingness to behave environmental friendly, particularly to change the travel mode choice. Results illustrate that communicating the consequences of air pollution can provoke individuals' to act more environment friendly or in particular to change their intention for using more sustainable mode of transportation. Framing the positive consequences of mitigating air pollution take precedence over framing the negative consequences. Moreover the gains of mitigating air pollution have an impact on the willingness to use of bicycle and bus. Results also show that decreasing the psychological distance of air pollution in order to make manipulated frame more personally relevant has no significant impact on respondents. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.