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Home environmental consequences of commute travel impedance
Author(s) -
Novaco Raymond W.,
Kliewer Wendy,
Broquet Alexander
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1007/bf00937890
Subject(s) - library science , citation , sociology , psychology , engineering , computer science
The physical and perceptual dimensions of commuting travel impedance were again found to have stressful consequences in a study of 99 employees of two companies. This quasi-experimental replication study, which focuses here on home environment consequences, investigated the effects of physical impedance and subjective impedance on multivariate measures of residential satisfaction and personal affect in the home. Both sets of residential outcome measures were significantly related to the two impedance dimensions. As predicted, gender was a significant moderator of physical impedance effects. Women commuting on high physical impedance routes were most negatively affected. Previously found subjective impedance effects on negative home mood, regardless of gender, were strongly replicated with several methods and were buttressed by convergent results with objective indices. The theoretical conjecture that subjective impedance mediates the stress effects of physical impedance was supported by the personal affect cluster but only for one variable in the residential satisfaction cluster. Traffic congestion has increased in metropolitan areas nationwide, and commuters, families, and organizations are absorbing associated hidden costs. The results are reviewed in terms of our ecological model, and the moderating effects of gender are discussed in terms of choice and role constraints.