{"id":1055,"date":"2017-02-14T16:28:40","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T16:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/?p=1055"},"modified":"2017-02-14T16:29:27","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T16:29:27","slug":"drivers-nudged-into-better-behaviour-by-psychologists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/2017\/02\/14\/drivers-nudged-into-better-behaviour-by-psychologists\/","title":{"rendered":"Drivers &#8216;nudged&#8217; into better behaviour by psychologists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Psychologists \u2018nudged\u2019 double the normal number of drivers into turning off their engines at a busy Canterbury level crossing by making simple changes to road signs.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Drivers leaving their engines idling for long periods contribute to air pollution, waste fuel, and produce noise and fumes that harm the environment and public health.<\/p>\n<p>But the researchers found that making simple changes to road signs at the level crossing could prompt drivers to consciously reflect on their behaviour, leading to 50% of people turning off their engines.<\/p>\n<p>Psychological research has shown that subtle cues that someone\u2019s behaviour is being observed can increase their compliance with instructions.<\/p>\n<p>In the first part of their study, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/people\/abramsd\/\" target=\"_blank\">Professor Dominic Abrams<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/people\/hopthrowt\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dr Tim Hopthrow<\/a>, of the University\u2019s School of Psychology, found that greater numbers of motorists waiting at the level crossing could be encouraged to switch off their engines when a pair of \u2018watching eyes\u2019 were added to existing signs instructing drivers to do this when the barriers were down.<\/p>\n<p>For more information, please visit the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/news\/environment\/12497\/prompting-better-driver-behaviour-by-changing-road-signs\" target=\"_blank\">Kent News Centre pages<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Psychologists \u2018nudged\u2019 double the normal number of drivers into turning off their engines at a busy Canterbury level crossing by making simple changes to road &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/2017\/02\/14\/drivers-nudged-into-better-behaviour-by-psychologists\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14803,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[140626,3684,70],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14803"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1055"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1057,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions\/1057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}