The description of individuals' cognitive subsets in fun shopping activities by making use of association rules algorithms : case study in Hasselt, Belgium

Abstract

Because of the strong increase in the number of fun shopping trips, a shift towards more sustainable fun shopping behavior is desirable. In this thesis, people's reasoning in choosing a transport mode and shopping location for fun shopping trips is investigated. For this purpose, 221 respondents are questioned using the Computer-based Causal Network Elicitation Technique. It appears that the complexity of the mental representation of the decision problem is very stable over different socio-demographic groups. Concerning the content of the mental representation, clear differences appear between the different groups. Most remarkable is the limited importance of cost and environmental aspects. This finding has important policy and marketing implications. Parking restriction measures seem to have the largest potential to accomplish a shift towards a more sustainable modal split.