Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/233060 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Citation: 
[Journal:] Frontiers in Psychology [ISSN:] 1664-1078 [Volume:] 12 [Article No.:] 623652 [Publisher:] Frontiers [Place:] Lausanne [Year:] 2021 [Pages:] --
Publisher: 
Frontiers, Lausanne
Abstract: 
With the release of the latest IPCC report, the urgency to steer the transport sector toward ecological sustainability has been recognized more and more broadly. To better understand, the prerequisites for a transition to sustainable mobility, we argue that interdisciplinary mobility research needs to revisit the interaction between social structures and individual agency by focusing on social norms. While critical sociological approaches stress the structural barriers to sustainable mobility, political discourse over sustainable mobility is still largely dominated by overly individualistic approaches, which focus on individual behavior change neglecting its social embeddedness. With discursive struggles over sustainable mobility intensifying, it becomes more urgent to better understand how structural contexts condition individual travel behavior, while at the same time showing how individuals engage in processes of social change. Against this backdrop, the article seeks to deepen the cooperation between sociological and psychological research in mobility transitions research. Building on a broad body of literature, we revisit recent theoretical approaches, which conceptualize the role of individual agency in sustainability transitions. On this basis, we highlight the role of social norms in mobility transitions as a key concept bridging individual behavior and social structures. Using Strong Structuration Theory as an integrative framework, we focus on the role of individual agency in processes of re-negotiation of social norms. Our main hypothesis is that individuals can contribute to mobility transitions by influencing and re-negotiating social norms, especially in the context of windows of opportunity. We analyze how focusing on the dynamic and conflicted nature of social norms can help to illustrate leverage points for a mobility transition as well as inspire future empirical research in the field. This includes that individuals can influence social norms through changing their own travel behavior as well as through engaging in discourse on transport policies.
Subjects: 
sustainable mobility
transition
agency
social norms
norm conflict
interdisciplinary
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Additional Information: 
The publication of this article was funded by the Open Access Fund of the Leibniz Association as well as the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB).
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

Files in This Item:





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.