Anticipated emotions and resistance to innovations: the case of p2p car sharing

Highlights

• Peer-to-peer car sharing is considered a socio-technical innovation.

• Anticipated emotions affect the perceived risks and the diffusion of innovations.

• The burden of sharing anticipated by owners and renters limits adoption.

• Existing mechanisms do not fully relieve the anticipated stress.

• Stress-relieving mechanisms are necessary to encourage adoption.

Abstract

Peer-to-peer (P2P) car sharing is a sociotechnical innovation that could facilitate a transition to a more sustainable mobility system. Understanding the factors hampering adoption of this innovation is of outmost importance. Whereas past studies have expounded on the advantages and disadvantages that potential adopters see in these schemes, this study takes a different route and studies individuals’ anticipated emotions toward the innovation at the intrapersonal and interpersonal level. This approach unveils that potential adopters anticipate the burden of sharing or feelings of stress, anxiety and fear if they enter the schemes. The anticipated burden of sharing deters potential adopters from adopting this innovation. These insights provide a complementary explanation to understand the factors inhibiting the adoption of sociotechnical innovations.

Introduction

Peer-to-peer car sharing (P2P car sharing hereafter) is proposed as a sociotechnical innovation that could facilitate a transition to a more sustainable mobility regime (Axsen and Sovacool, 2019). P2P car sharing may effectively address some of the societal and environmental problems associated with mobility (Shaheen and Cohen, 2013), namely, increasing congestion and reduced parking space (Cohen and Kietzmann, 2014; Glotz-Richter, 2016; Shaheen and Cohen, 2013) while also reducing emissions per household (Shaheen et al., 2012). These schemes have been proven especially valuable in places where public transportation and business-to-consumer (B2C) car-sharing schemes are scarce (Hampshire and Gaites, 2011). Moreover, participation in these schemes may create individual benefits, such as accruing economic gains for owners (Wilhelms et al., 2017a,b) or expanding mobility alternatives with more affordable choices for renters (Münzel et al., 2019; Shaheen et al., 2018).

Given the potential societal and individual benefits of P2P car sharing, understanding the factors that could inhibit the adoption of this innovation is of particular importance (Clausen and Fichter, 2019; Hazée et al., 2017), especially considering that in many countries, P2P car sharing has low, albeit growing, penetration rates (Huber 2017; Rodenbach et al., 2017). Past scholarship has shown that potential adopters anticipate risks such as liability issues, vehicle damage or vehicle availability (Ballús-Armet et al., 2014; Dill et al., 2017; Hampshire and Gaites, 2011; Shaheen et al., 2018; Shaheen and Cohen, 2013; Prieto et al., 2017). These perceived risks explain the resistance to adopt an innovation, because the greater the perceived risks are, the more negative the attitude will be toward an innovation and the less likely its adoption (Clausen and Fichter, 2019; Heidenreich and Handrich, 2015).

Past studies have implicitly assumed that individuals perform a rational assessment of risks, weighing the pros and cons of adopting the innovation (Heidenreich and Spieth, 2013). This assumption reflects the already noted prevailing rational choice paradigm to understand adoption of innovations (Huber, 2017). However, this assumption is not entirely correct, as demonstrated by risk-as-feelings theories: risk assessments prior to choice-making are far from being a rational analysis of the severity and likelihood of possible outcomes (Loewenstein et al., 2001); rather, risk assessment is infused with feelings and future choices are affected by anticipated emotions (Mellers et al., 1999).

Whereas other studies have established the relevance of experienced emotions (in particular, emotional attachment to vehicles) (Prieto et al., 2017) as barriers for the participation of car owners in shared mobility schemes, this study offers a complementary view; in particular, it focuses on the anticipated emotions or the prospective emotions arising in the absence of actual engagement with the innovation. The study of anticipated emotions to understand transitions to shared mobility regimes is relevant for two reasons.

First, anticipated emotions influence individuals’ choices (Mellers et al., 1999) and thus would influence the decision to take part in this form of collaborative consumption. Emotions, together with meanings or understandings, are part of the sense-making of an innovation (Huber, 2017) and, as such, they should affect the recruitment or defection of potential adopters. Following the risk-as-feelings theory, we would expect that the feelings experienced when assessing risks affect the perceived probability of the occurrence of these risks and, with it, the desirability of a given choice. As has been demonstrated in many studies, cognitive and emotional responses to risk diverge, as individuals are cognizant that the occurrence of a given risk is very unlikely and still suffer acute fear and anxiety, which may affect their choice (Loewenstein and Lerner, 2003). Similarly, as demonstrated by decision affect theory (Mellers et al., 1997, 1999), anticipated regret negatively affects a future choice, as individuals tend choose alternatives that they expect would provide the greatest average pleasure.

Past research has discussed the intrapersonal role of emotions, showing that they affect the individual’s decision to adopt collaborative schemes (e.g., Beria et al., 2017; Huber, 2017). We argue that anticipated emotions are also relevant at the interpersonal level because they affect the diffusion process and, ultimately, the institutionalization of an innovation. When a person communicates her anticipated emotions to others, a process of affect diffusion begins (Peters and Kashima, 2015). If these emotions are dominantly negative, and they spill over to others, the progressive adoption of the innovation may be hampered. Moreover, as more individuals communicate similar (negative) emotions towards an innovation, these emotions may be reified as sentiments. Sentiments are “collectively shared emotional dispositions towards marketplace elements” (Gopaldas, 2014: 998). Once established, marketplace sentiments operate as structures of feeling that are systematically reproduced by actors in a market. In other words, sentiments are institutionalizing—as well as institutionalized—market forces (Gopaldas, 2014). Thus, if a negative sentiment toward the innovation takes root in the market, the diffusion process will be halted.

Drawing from psychological theories of anticipated emotions and choice as well as sociocultural approaches to emotions, this paper examines the role of anticipated emotions in the adoption of peer-to-peer car sharing (P2P car sharing) at two levels: intrapersonal (anticipated emotions affecting the individual’s decision to participate in P2P car-sharing schemes) and interpersonal (anticipated emotions communicated and shared with others regarding P2P car sharing). This twofold analysis implies understanding emotions as both a psychological and a sociocultural construct, examining their role in individual decision-making and, more broadly, in the institutionalization of the P2P car-sharing market. This dual analysis of emotions does not aim to replace but to complement extant explanations of the diffusion of innovations (Clausen and Fichter, 2019; Huber, 2017).

The study of anticipated emotions at the intrapersonal and interpersonal levels demands an ideographic approach (Gopaldas, 2014; Rogers, 1986; Selwyn, 2003) to understand potential adopters’ subjective and emotional sense-making of P2P car sharing. This subjective assessment, even if it is biased or incorrect, is what determines the (non)adoption of innovations (Rogers, 1983; Selwyn, 2003). More specifically, intrapersonal emotions were identified in 20 in-depth interviews with individuals who had not previously participated in P2P car sharing but who fit the profile of actual and intended early adopters described by the past studies (e.g., Prieto et al., 2017; Shaheen et al., 2018). Emotions at the interpersonal level were studied through media analysis (i.e., news, videos and marketplaces’ websites and press kits) and naturally occurring conversations in social media (i.e., Forocoches, the largest discussion forum in Spain and the third largest in the world, with more than 21 million monthly visitors¹).

This study shows that potential adopters, both owners and renters, anticipate the burden of sharing or the stress associated with their potential participation in P2P car sharing. Their rejection of P2P car sharing is a strategy to avoid the emotions of worry, fear and anxiety they anticipate experiencing if they were to enter the schemes. Furthermore, the findings show that some of the mechanisms implemented by marketplaces are not able to fully relieve the anticipated stress. The study also shows that these negative emotions are shared with others in social media, which suggests that a sentiment of anxiety may emerge that could hamper the adoption of the innovation. The insights of this study complement existing frameworks of barriers to the adoption of sociotechnical innovations (Clausen and Fichter, 2019) and could be useful for policymakers and organizations in institutionalizing P2P car-sharing schemes.