The role of parental environmental self-identity in active travel behavior within parent–adolescent dyads

Abstract

Active travel in everyday life offers the opportunity to increase physical activity (PA), supports young people in their development, and is more sustainable than motorized travel. The environmental awareness of young people can be influenced by parents and can lead them to choose mainly active travel modes. Since parents can have a strong impact on the behavioral patterns of adolescents, it is important to investigate how parental decisions are linked to children’s actions. The aim of the current study is to assess the relationship between parental environmental self-identity, referring to parents’ own attitudes towards their environmentally friendly behavior, and active travel behavior in adolescents as well as parents’ own travel behavior. The present research is based on the German ARRIVE (Active tRavel behavioR in the famIly enVironmEnt) study. The sample consists of 517 parent–adolescent dyads. Parents and adolescents completed an online questionnaire containing questions on their sociodemographic backgrounds and travel behavior to four different destinations, and the parents additionally answered questions on their environmental self-identity. To identify differences in environmental self-identity between sex/gender, residential setting, and education level, a one-way analysis of variance was conducted. Binary logistic regressions were used to investigate associations between parental environmental self-identity and parental travel mode as well as their adolescents’ travel mode. There were positive relationships between parental environmental self-identity and adolescents’ use of active travel modes for the way to leisure activities, to school, and to friends. Odds ratios (OR) for these associations indicated low effect sizes (OR = 1.240–1.616). Among parents, all associations revealed statistical significance with low (OR for friends/relatives = 1.728) to medium (OR to shopping = 2.028) effect sizes. Our results suggest that adolescents’ active travel routines seem to be related to parental attitudes.