Understanding car-sharing by integrating long-, medium- and short-term cognitions

• We integrate short- (attitudes, norms), medium- (goals), and long-term cognitions (values) to explain car-sharing. • We extract “environmental consciousness” and the desire for “luxury” as goals relevant to car-sharing. • Values underlie both short and medium-term cognitions and are thus central to car-sharing. • Goals influence both intentions and actual car-sharing behaviour. • Car-sharing results from a complex web of long-term, medium-term, and short-term cognitions. Examinations into the psychological drivers of car-sharing have to date focused on short-term cognitions such as attitudes, norms, and intentions. In this paper, we integrate such short-term cognitions with medium-term cognitions (e.g., goals) and long-term cognitions (e.g., values), thereby providing a more comprehensive understanding of the psychological drivers of car-sharing. We surveyed a broadly representative sample of the UK population (N = 1,294) and found that values underlie medium-term cognitions (e.g., goals) and short-term cognitions, thereby ultimately influencing car-sharing intentions and behaviour. Moreover, our results show that environmental consciousness and the desire for luxury are important yet opposing goals that affect both intentions to engage in car-sharing and to actually use car-sharing. Overall, we demonstrate that car-sharing may be more complex than previously anticipated and should be understood as a behaviour that results from a complex web of long-, medium-, and short-term cognitions. We discuss practical and theoretical implications.