PLAN DE MANEJO

This section is introduced by two short stories on past experiences of prosocial behaviour in traffic. It then provides an example of an altruistic system as well as of a system to strengthen self-control. This is followed by a pre-study, which clarifies the important elements of prosocial behaviour on the road in order to gather and analyse insights on the motivation and the outside factors, which influence prosocial behaviour while driving.

What Made My Day: 1st Story

I drove to a nearby supermarket for groceries. The parking lot was packed, but luckily I found a space close to the entrance. I had almost parked the car, when I saw a woman with a toddler looking for an empty spot. I reversed out and drove to a space further from the entrance. I often behave like this. It is my contribution to friendly cooperation instead of the ubiquitous competition on the road. (taken from: [KHM+_13])

What Made My Day: 2nd Story

I was under pressure, a little late, when I saw an elderly man with a very old dog at a [...] crossing. I found the pair touching. I smiled and stopped for them to cross the road. The man smiled back and slowly got under way. I thought, ’I should do this more often,’ because it feels good. This was just a brief moment, which made my day. (taken from: [KHM+_13])

Albeit sometimes a necessity, commuting alone also contains the possibility to become the idealist who one wants to be and live, and enable to others, positive experiences.

To design a system that supports prosocial behaviour on the road, various strategies are analysed in the following section.

Prosocial Behaviour in Our Everyday Life

The "What Made My Day"-stories illustrate possible examples of how prosocial road behaviour affects us on the road. There are rare examples from different contexts of products that focus on promoting prosocial behaviour as the goal of the interaction design, such as Altruistic Fan (see Figure 4.13) by Yeoreum Lee and colleagues [LLS11]. The system of Altruistic Fan consists of two fans, one person blowing in the sending fan and another person receiving the passed-on air from the other person. Thus, the Altruistic Fan is a product, which positively affects the receiver of the altruistic action. The sender receives no direct benefit from the idealistic action.

Indeed, driving considerately on the streets is more complex than blowing into a fan, and in the case of the Altruistic Fan the sender and receiver are familiar with each other, unlike in most road interactions. Therefore, a system that fosters considerate driving has to not only concentrate on fostering empathic social relations, but, furthermore, on the driver as well as on personal principles and norms. Human nature has an inherent element of kindness, therefore a system should help drivers to self-control their behaviour towards prosocial norms.

Systems fostering self-control can be found in other contexts as well. There are systems that help to control excess use of water while showering through visualisation of the wastage [LHDT11]. Another example is the paper towel dispenser, designed by Saatchi and Saatchi, which gives the user direct feedback of the negative influence of over-consumption (see Figure 4.14).

In contrast, Kehr and his colleagues invented a product to foster self-control, "The Chocolate Machine" [KHLD12] (see Figure 4.15), in which the device dispenses wrapped balls of chocolate

Figure 4.13:The Altruistic Fan (figures and quotation from [LLS11])

Figure 4.15:The Chocolate Machine (figures and quotation form [KHLD12]).

every 40 to 60 minutes, leaving the user with the choice of whether to eat the chocolate or return it to the dispenser. The machine counts the number of times the user chooses to return the chocolate balls, thus encouraging self-control and thereby providing positive feedback. The more chocolate balls that are put back into the machine, the greater the sense of self-control. The idea behind The Chocolate Machine is the Ego Depletion Theory [SOA00], which discusses the possibility of training the sense of self-control like a muscle, a concept that is also imaginable through systems in an automotive context. This could strengthen awareness for situations like those discussed within the "What Made my Day"-stories.

In order to design a system that encourages considerate driving, a pre-study to gather insights on the motivation and the outside factors, which influence prosocial behaviour while driving, was conducted.

Pre-study Considerate Driving: Procedure and Methods

15 participants were recruited aged between 22 and 31 (mean = 25), six female and nine male, for a semi-structured episodic narrative interview (see in Section 2.3.1) with an average duration of 30 minutes. Traffic situations in the form of four videos as well as one picture were shown to the participants as potential acts of considerate driving, to gather the participants’ perceptions and attitudes towards considerate driving. After showing each situation to the participants, they were asked if they chose to act prosocially in such situations, and if so, why and when. The situations

Figure 4.16: a) to d) screenshots from the video shown to the participants; e) picture shown to the participants (figure from [KHM+_13]).

were shown to the participants as follows:

a) Give way to a car coming from the opposite direction on a one-lane road, shown in Figure 4.16 Panel a)

b) Give way to a car pulling out of a parking lot, shown in Figure 4.16 Panel b) c) Give way to a car exiting a driveway, shown in Figure 4.16 Panel c)

d) Give way to a pedestrian crossing the street, shown in Figure 4.16 Panel d)

e) Drive slowly through a reduced-traffic area respecting playing children, shown in Figure 4.16 Panel e)

The statements of the participants were classified and categorised using Affinity Diagrams (see Section 2.3.1). Thereby, each participant’s statements for each category were clustered by similarity (as described in Section 2.3.1). As motivations for considerate driving, two main topics emerged in the results: (1) social learning, and (2) personal norms and principles. In the following, each topic is summarised with examples from the gathered interviews.

Pre-study Considerate Driving: Findings and Interpretations

All interview results were translated form German into English.

1. Social Learning

The first motivation, as according to the participants’ statements, addresses the social context as a reason for prosocial behaviour, that is, social learning.

There are various influences that effect the motivation for considerate driving. 13 (of 15) participants discussed the concept of "the city" as a hindrance to prosocial behaviour. As one participant claimed, "I am often annoyed if no one lets me out into traffic" (P14). Another participant mentioned, "In the city, it’s often kind of difficult to get out and so I’m always glad when someone leaves me a gap" (P4).

Another issue in the context of social learning is that the positive feedback resulting from the prosocial behaviour is given an important role. This is shown by statements such as, "Yes, I think it would be nice if he’d say thank you. Such communication with other people is always kind of nice" (P3), "It’s definitely a nice sign" (P13). Seven (of 15) participants argued that the resulting feedback is a precondition for prosocial behaviour in traffic, thereby missing feedback in one situation could result in a choice against prosocial behaviour in another situation, e.g., "Why did I do it at all, if he doesn’t even say thank you?" (P15). 2. Personal Norms and Principles

The other motivation found while analysing the participants’ statements was that personal norms and principles influence prosocial behaviour in traffic.

Eight (of 15) participants spoke about their norms and principles in general. One participant argued, "It just feels right" (P2), another, "That’s my basic attitude, I also open doors for others" (P15). Nine participants mentioned their duty to protect "weaker" road members, like children at play, cyclists, and pedestrians. The following statements are examples of this idea, e.g., "Pedestrians have priority in residential neighborhoods" (P12), "Well, from my point of view, the pedestrian is the weakest link – therefore you stop" (P15).

Eight (of 15) participants also explained that due to their norms and principles the role of the resulting feedback on prosocial driving was less important, as one participant argued, "It’s not a big deal for me [to drive considerately], so actually it doesn’t matter [whether I get feedback or not]" (P14).

Besides these two main topics statements were made about factors that prevent the partici- pants from acting prosocially on the road.

situation, I obstruct the street for the people behind me" (P3). Four (of 15) participants men- tioned general time pressure, e.g., "I only don’t do it when I’m in a hurry" (P13).

Feedback was also occasionally less important based on the specific traffic situation, e.g., "He has no time to say thank you because of the traffic situation, so it doesn’t matter to me" (P11), "Well, of course it would be nice, but it’s not that important – often you don’t even notice" (P4).

These results show that the motivation for considerate driving is based on different influences. There are influences related to social learning, such as reciprocity and the prospect of positive feedback.

Taking these into account, prosocial behaviour in traffic is dependent on the feedback following this behaviour. Other influences, such as thefeeling of responsibilitytowards the other road users, show that people try to act according to their personal norms and principles. This conforms to Batson and Powell [BP03] who also identified a relation between prosocial behaviour on the one hand, and norms and rules on the other hand. The latter motivation is less influenced by the prospect of positive feedback than the motivation of social learning aspect.

Apart from these motivational aspects, the decision of whether to act or not, however, depends on the concrete situation. Although norm-driven people depend less on feedback, as has been discussed, than reward-driven people, most of them still enjoy this kind of gratefulness – above all, no participant considered positive feedback by other road users as negative. Based upon these findings, strategies were outlined to instill more considerate driving habits. In the following, the strategies are first discussed, and subsequently an explorative prototype is designed based upon one of them.

Fostering Considerate Driving: Five Design Strategies

Based on the results of the pre-studies, five general reflections about potential systems were made. These reflections are represented in the following five strategies, which are focused to foster proso- cial behaviour in traffic, i.e., considerate driving behaviour.

• Strategy 1: Shape the public perception

As seen in the above mentioned findings, some participants act considerately because of the prospect of positive feedback. This is an indication of the desire for recognition by others while acting prosocially. Therefore, a system can potentially encourage prosocial behaviour by shaping the public perception of the driver through making their considerate behaviour visible for others.

• Strategy 2: Give personalised feedback

Feedback for an act of considerate driving was perceived positively, not one of the partic- ipants perceived the feedback as negative. Thereby, another strategy can be to reward the driver when acting considerately in order to give additional positive feedback for the con- tribution to more harmonic traffic. As road users try to support each other, a system should confirm this attitude in order to keep the driver motivated by giving recognition. Here, the undermining effect (as described in the introduction of this design case) is to be avoided.

• Strategy 3: Internalise of prosocial behaviour by addressing personal norms and principles

The importance of living up to personal norms and principles as shown by the findings can be supported by a system. Helping to support one’s personal self-image can foster prosocial behaviour, and thus the internalisation of, e.g., considerate behaviour.

• Strategy 4: Impart the view of other road users

The findings of the pre-study showed that prosocial behaviour in traffic also depends on the driver’s empathy (e.g., for the "weaker" user). Therefore a system can show the current situation of other road users and make them transparent to the driver.

• Strategy 5: Provoke feedback by other road users

As seen in the findings of the pre-study, positive feedback can play an important role in the context of considerate driving. Therefore, a system can foster the communication of positive feedback by provoking the feedback of the road users who benefit from the prosocial act. The above mentioned design strategies can be used to build systems that foster considerate driving in different ways. In this work, one experimental prototype was implemented as an example with the focus on one strategy selected from the above mentioned strategies, "Internalise considerate behaviour by addressing personal norms and principles." Although the design focused on this strategy, the ideas of the other strategies were not ignored.

In the following step, an Experience Story is developed to define the experience for the later design of the experimental prototype.