Abstract
People are sensitive to the way information on fuel efficiency is conveyed. When the fuel efficiency of cars is framed in terms of fuel per distance (FPD; e.g. l/100 km), instead of distance per units of fuel (DPF; e.g. km/l), people have a more accurate perception of potential fuel savings. People tend to treat both DPF and FPD as linearly related to fuel consumption, while the relationship between DPF and fuel consumption is in fact curvilinear. We examined whether these incorrect assessments would also affect hypothetical car purchase choices in situations where cars also differ in relevant aspects other than fuel efficiency. Three experimental studies suggest that participants consistently employed a linearity heuristic, resulting in less optimal car choices in a DPF than in a FPD frame, and that this linearity heuristic for fuel efficiency with fuel consumption persists in the face of variations of important characteristics unrelated to fuel efficiency.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
We make a distinction throughout the paper between fuel consumption (the amount of fuel that is being used) and fuel efficiency (how efficiently a vehicle consumes fuel).
We decided not to include the second task designed by [4] that measured willingness to pay for different more fuel-efficient car versions of a base model, because we considered willingness to pay as an indirect measure of the relation between fuel efficiency and fuel consumption.
References
Byun, D.H.: The AHP approach for selecting an automobile purchase model. Information Management 38, 289–297 (2001)
De Bock, D., Van Dooren, W., Janssens, D., Verschaffel, L.: Improper use of linear reasoning: an in-depth study of the nature and the irresistibility of secondary school students’ errors. Educational Studies in Mathematics 50, 311–334 (2002)
Kahneman, D.: Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux (2011)
Larrick, R. P., Soll, J. B.: The MPG illusion. Science 320, 1593–1594 (2008)
Mogridge, M.: The effect of the oil crisis on the growth in the ownership and use of cars. Transportation 7, 45–67 (1978)
Neumann, I., Cocron, P., Franke, T., Krems, J. F.: Electric vehicles as a solution for green driving in the future? a field study examining the user acceptance of electric vehicles. In Proceedings of the European conference on human centred design for intelligent transport systems (pp. 445–453) (2010)
Poortinga, W., Steg, L., Vlek, C., Wiersma, G.: Household preferences for energy-saving measures: a conjoint analysis. Journal of Economic Psychology 24, 49–64 (2003)
Preacher, K. J., Hayes, A. F.: Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods 40, 879–891 (2008)
Steg, L.: Can public transport compete with the private car. IATSS Research 27, 27 (2003)
Tversky, A., Kahneman, D.: The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science 211, 453–458 (1981)
Vlahović-Štetić, V., Pavlin-Bernardic, N., Rajter, M.: Illusion of linearity in geometry: effect in multiple-choice problems. Mathematical Thinking and Learning 12, 54–67 (2010)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Schouten, T.M., Bolderdijk, J.W. & Steg, L. Framing car fuel efficiency: linearity heuristic for fuel consumption and fuel-efficiency ratings. Energy Efficiency 7, 891–901 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-014-9260-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-014-9260-z