Applying an extended prototype willingness model to predict back seat safety belt use in China

The risk of injury and death in traffic accidents for passengers in the back and front seats can be reduced by utilizing safety belts. However, passengers use back seatbelts far less frequently than those in the front. More investigation is therefore required into the psychological constructs that affect individuals' attitudes toward using back seat belts. In this study, four models were used to analyze individual intentions and actual back seat belt use: the standard theory of planned behavior (TPB); the standard prototype willingness model (PWM); a model that integrates the TPB and PWM constructs; and a model that integrates the TPB construct, PWM constructs, descriptive norms and perceived law enforcement. The results showed that the standard PWM has much more explanatory power than the standard TPB in explaining the variance in behavioral intention and behavior. Incorporating perceived behavioral control (PBC) into the standard PWM did not improve the model fit considerably, while incorporating descriptive norms and perceived law enforcement moderately improved the model fit. Attitude greatly impacted behavioral intention and the use of back seat belts, followed by perceived law enforcement and descriptive norms, while subjective norms, prototype favorability, prototype similarity and PBC had no significant effect.