A behavioral framework for measuring motility: Linking past mobility experiences, motility and eudemonic well-being

Abstract

• Past mobility experiences and acquired travel resources contribute to motility. • Motility can be quantitatively assessed through disaggregate measures of access, skills and willingness. • Motility can be quantitatively linked to eudemonic well-being. This study establishes a quantitative relationship between formative mobility, motility and eudemonic well-being. The behavioral framework is proposed as an aid for measuring motility, understanding its driving forces and its derived eudemonic well-being. Formative mobility consists of past mobility experiences, aquired mobility resources and socio-economic characteristics. Motility is assessed through components of personal access, skills and cognitive appropriation and cover: neighborhood mobility qualities, residential access qualities, mobility skills, travel self-confidence, openness to new people and places. Eudemonic well-being is measured using the three aspects of the Self-Determination Theory: autonomy, relatedness and competencies. A tailor made questionnaire was designed to collect the data. The proposed behavioral framework is validated with a structural-equation model estimated based on a sample of 822 women in Israel. The results show: i) past mobility experiences and aquired travel resources are positively correlated with current perceived motility, ii) mobility skills, travel self-confidence, openness to new people and places are associated with autonomy and environmental mastery, ii) openness to people and places is linked to a higher degree of self-acceptance, iii) mobility skills are positively related to higher personal growth and purpose, iv) access, mobility skills and openness to new people and places is linked to positive relations with others (relatedness).