Unconscious Motivators and Situational Safety Belt Use. Literature Review and Results from an Expert Panel Meeting Technical rept

摘要

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.