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Going with the flow: Young motorcyclists’ misperceived norms and motorcycle speeding behaviour

Hue Trong Duong (Department of Communication Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA)
Lukas Parker (School of Media and Communication, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Melbourne, Australia)

Journal of Social Marketing

ISSN: 2042-6763

Article publication date: 10 April 2018

Issue publication date: 23 July 2018

632

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine motorcycle driving norms and their implications for social marketing practice. It investigates whether misperceptions of descriptive norms related to motorcycle speeding behaviour are prevalent among young motorcyclists, and whether there is an association between these misperceptions with their speeding behaviour.

Design/methodology/approach

A cross-sectional survey of 541 young motorcyclists was carried out as the second phase of a larger project, which examined the role of social norms related to road safety attitudes and behaviours.

Findings

The results showed misperceptions of perceived speeding norms among both male and female young motorcyclists. There was an association between normative misperceptions and speeding behaviour, and between speeding behaviour and approval to speeding behaviour by young motorcyclists. In addition, peer presence was found to moderate the relationship between misperceptions of speeding norms and speeding behaviour.

Originality/value

The study contributes to addressing the call for study of social norms marketing and health risks in non-Western contexts. Further, the results provide support for social marketers to consider the use of social norms approach in designing social marketing campaigns to promote safe motorcycle driving behaviours.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge RMIT Vietnam University for the funding on this project and the support of Ms Dang Nguyen during data collection. The authors also wish to thank Professor Jennifer Monahan at the Department of Communication Studies, University of Georgia, Dr Torgeir Aleti at RMIT University and two anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Citation

Duong, H.T. and Parker, L. (2018), "Going with the flow: Young motorcyclists’ misperceived norms and motorcycle speeding behaviour", Journal of Social Marketing, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 314-332. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSOCM-10-2017-0064

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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