1. Report No.

DOT HS 810 650

2. Government Accession No.

3. Recipient’s Catalog No.

4. Title and Subtitle

UNCONSCIOUS MOTIVATORS AND SITUATIONAL SAFETY BELT USE
Literature Review and Results from an Expert Panel Meeting

5. Report Date

August 2006

6. Performing Organization Code

7. Author(s)
Christine Brittle, Ph.D. (Project Director, The Media Network, Inc.)
Michael Cosgrove, Ph.D. (Subcontractor, Low + Associates)

8. Performing Organization Report No.

9. Performing Organization Name and Address

The Media Network, Inc.
8720 Georgia Ave., Suite 606
Silver Spring, MD 20910

10. Work Unit No. (TRAIS)

11. Contract or Grant No.

DTNH 22-04-P-05230

12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address

Office of Research and Technology
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
400 Seventh Street, SW., Room 5119
Washington, DC 20590

13. Type of Report and Period Covered

NHTSA Technical Report

14. Sponsoring Agency Code

15. Supplementary Notes

COTR: Jesse Blatt

16. Abstract

Despite the overwhelming evidence that safety belts save lives, millions of Americans still do not buckle up every time they are in a motor vehicle. A small proportion of these people never wear safety belts, but the vast majority are “situational safety belt users,” wearing a belt only when they think it is necessary. NHTSA researchers hypothesized that these part-time wearers use unconscious defense mechanisms (i.e., repression, denial, rationalization, and fatalism) to suppress conscious thought of the consequences of being in a crash. To explore whether unconscious defense mechanisms are an appropriate intervention point to encourage the full-time use of belts, NHTSA commissioned a literature review and expert panel meeting on the role of unconscious motivators in response to safety threats. The literature review suggested increased mindfulness, enhanced efficacy, increasing the social desirability of compliance, disrupting resistance, and encouraging anticipatory regret as ways to overcome unconscious motivators. The expert panel suggested the following techniques: reframe personal control, reframe the reason for wearing belts (e.g., make it unrelated to safety), reframe the perception of who wears belts, use indirect messages which are nonthreatening, and recognize the factors that make belt wearing a unique behavior. Both portions of this research suggest that unconscious motivators play an important role in situational belt wearing, and offer suggestions for how to address these unconscious motivators at a mass level to encourage full-time belt wearing. However, the particular combination of strategies to achieve favorable outcomes is highly dependent on: (1) which unconscious motivators are at work, and (2) the population exhibiting the behavior targeted for change. Additional research on these two issues is recommended.

17. Key Words

safety belts; seatbelts; unconscious motivators; defense mechanisms; behavior change; attitudes and beliefs; risk perception; risk communication; repression; denial; rationalization; fatalism

18. Distribution Statement

  This document is available to the public through the National Technical Information Service, Springfield, VA 22161.

19. Security Classif. (Of this report)
Unclassified

20. Security Classif. (Of this page)
Unclassified

21. No. of Pages

62

22. Price