travel behavior students

Travel attitudes or behaviours: Which one changes when they conflict?

• Published: 16 October 2021
• Volume 50 , pages 25–42, ( 2023 )

Cite this article

• Laura McCarthy 1 ,
• Alexa Delbosc   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8744-3469 1 ,
• Maarten Kroesen 2 &
• Mathijs de Haas 3  

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In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the ‘disagreement’ or dissonance between travel attitudes and behaviours. This has shown that when people experience travel-related dissonance they are less satisfied with their travel experience. However, what remains unclear is whether people experiencing dissonance are more likely to change their travel attitude or their behaviour, so that they are more closely aligned. Moreover, it is unclear whether and how life events, such as having a child, interact with creating or reducing travel-related dissonance. Using data from a large and well-designed longitudinal study, this paper addresses these two gaps in the literature on travel-related cognitive dissonance through an exploratory study. The findings suggest that dissonant travellers are more likely to change their segment membership than consonant travellers. Furthermore, in line with the theory of cognitive dissonance, people may adjust either their attitudes or behaviours to achieve a state of consonance. This suggests that policymakers should not only focus on subtle nudges aimed at changing attitudes (and subsequently behaviours) in desirable directions but also on implementing policies aimed at directly influencing behaviours, assuming that attitudes will follow.

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Introduction

Transportation researchers have long been interested in the relationship between attitudes and travel behaviour. Most of this research focuses on the congruent relationship between attitudes and behaviour, showing that positive mode-specific attitudes predict the use of that mode (Kroesen and Chorus 2018 ) or conversely that travel behaviours shape attitudes (Tardiff 1977 ; Dobson et al. 1978 ; Kroesen et al. 2017 ). More recently, researchers have become interested in the state of ‘disagreement’ between attitudes and behaviours. When actions and attitudes do not match, people experience an unpleasant psychological state. In psychology, this state is referred to as cognitive dissonance and it has been a subject of research since the 1950s (Festinger 1957 ). When people experience cognitive dissonance, they tend to change either their attitude or their behaviour so that the two are more closely aligned.

In recent years transportation researchers have found that when people experience travel-related dissonance they are less satisfied with their travel experience (De Vos 2018 ). However, a recent review highlighted that to date no studies have been able to examine whether people change their travel behaviour to reduce travel-related dissonance (De Vos and Singleton 2020 ).

Furthermore, to date, no studies on travel-related dissonance have examined the role that life events might play in inducing (or reducing) a state of cognitive dissonance. The mobility biographies approach highlights the important role of life events, such as moving houses or changing jobs, in triggering travel behaviour change (Clark et al. 2016a ; de Haas et al. 2018 ). For instance, moving house may allow an individual with negative attitudes towards the car but frequent car-use to move to a less car-dependent location. However, if the choice of home location is constrained, it may also induce dissonance, for example, if an individual who prefers transit must move to a car-dependent area for work (see for example the ‘reverse causality hypothesis’ between the built environment and travel, (van Wee et al. 2019 )).

This paper attempts to address these two gaps in the literature on travel-related cognitive dissonance through an exploratory study. It does this through three research questions:

Over time, how stable is the state of travel-related cognitive dissonance?

Are people who experience travel-related cognitive dissonance more likely to change their travel behaviour or attitudes?

What is the impact of life events on inducing or reducing travel-related cognitive dissonance?

We explore these research questions using longitudinal panel data to examine whether mode-dissonant or mode-consonant individuals are more likely to remain in the same category in subsequent waves. Secondly, we explore whether mode-dissonant travellers are more likely to adapt their behaviour or attitudes to reduce dissonance. Finally, we explore the effect of life events on creating or reducing dissonance between travel attitudes and behaviours. Insights from these research questions may have implications for strategies encouraging travel behaviour change, identifying potential segments of the population who are more open to changing their travel behaviour.

Cognitive dissonance theory and travel behaviour

Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT) posits that people have an internal drive to resolve inconsistencies between attitudes and behaviours (Festinger 1957 ). If an inconsistency exists or arises between a particular attitude and behaviour, people will typically experience some level of psychological discomfort. In turn, this motivates people to adopt strategies to reduce this discomfort. Festinger ( 1957 ) outlined typical strategies to alleviate the discomfort: changing one of the dissonance conditions, changing the cognition through acquiring new knowledge that assists to alleviate the dissonance or trivialising the dissonance. For example, a person experiencing dissonance between his/her smoking behaviour and the cognition that smoking is bad for health may alter the behaviour (quit smoking) or the cognition (downplay the negative health effects of smoking). A priori, the theory of cognitive consistency assumes no dominance over which strategy is more likely to occur. Hence, based on this theory, an influence from behaviour towards attitudes is as likely as an influence from attitudes towards behaviour.

In the early days of social-psychological research, CDT was among the most heavily researched theories in the field. Literally hundreds of experiments have been conducted (Aronson 1992 ). Interestingly, however, little efforts have been made to operationalise the theory in a field setting. With respect to a particular target behaviour, one may identify four groups, two consonant ones and two dissonant ones, as depicted in Table 1 below. This approach to classifying people into categories of dissonant vs consonant has been used in studies of travel behaviour and residential location choice (Kroesen et al. 2017 ; Kamruzzaman et al. 2021 ). By assessing how membership of these four groups evolves, the main premise of CDT may already be tested in an observational setting, namely the notion that members of consonant groups are more likely to stay in their respective groups compared to members of the dissonant groups, who may be expected to either change their behaviour or their attitude towards the behaviour or adjust their circumstances. This approach assumes the adjustment of attitudes or behaviours is the only mechanism adopted to alleviate dissonance. Moreover, it does not account for the scale or variations in other background factors that may influence the extent and type of reduction strategies adopted. Nonetheless, this simplified approach allows for the fundamental concept of CDT to be tested in a field setting.

In this paper, we aim to return to the exploration of changes in attitude-behaviour inconsistencies over time, focusing on travel behaviour in particular. A few recent studies have explored this topic. Kroesen et al. ( 2017 ) used latent class analysis to identify groups of consonant and dissonant travellers and found, in line with CDT, that consonant travellers were less likely to change travel behaviour over time than dissonant travellers. De Vos ( 2018 ) also identified groups of consonant/dissonant travellers for different modes, revealing sizeable groups of dissonant travellers, especially regarding the use of the bicycle. The contribution of that study rests in the link that was made with travel satisfaction. In line with expectations, respondents travelling with their preferred travel mode (i.e., consonant travellers) seemed to experience their trip more positively compared to people travelling with a non-preferred travel mode (i.e., dissonant travellers). This result is well in line with CDT, in which inconsistency is assumed to create a state of stress/arousal, which can also be regarded as a state of dissatisfaction.

The present study also begins by classifying and describing consonant/dissonant travellers. However, this study extends the analysis to a second point in time to assess how stable these states are over time, and whether people are more likely to change their attitude or their behaviour to reduce dissonance. Given this is a major gap in the field, (identified in a recent review of CDT research (De Vos and Singleton 2020 )), it represents the first contribution of this paper.

Life events and cognitive dissonance

The second contribution of this paper is to explore the relationship between life events and travel-related dissonance. The mobility biographies approach, first introduced by Lanzendorf ( 2003 ), provides a framework for understanding travel behaviour changes throughout the life course. The framework introduces the theory of multiple life domains and recognises that a change in one domain or area will have ramifications for other areas (Lanzendorf 2003 ). As comprehensive reviews of the state of the field and the development of the theoretical framework have recently been conducted (see Müggenburg et al. ( 2015 ) and Scheiner ( 2018 )), we will instead focus this discussion on aspects of the framework relevant to our study.

A key concept emerging from the mobility biographies approach is the notion of stability and change in travel behaviour throughout the life course. Drawing on the role of habit as an important determinant of travel mode choice (Banister 1978 ; Aarts et al. 1997 ), the approach posits that life events, such as moving house or changing jobs, can disrupt stable travel routines. A life event can prompt changes to circumstances or context, which, in turn, requires an individual to switch from habitual to reflective thinking about their travel mode choices. It is these periods, in which travel routines are disrupted and habits are weakened, that provide a valuable opportunity to intervene and encourage the adoption of more sustainable travel choices (Verplanken et al. 2008 ).

Studies in this field have tended to focus on how behaviour, specifically mode use, changes following (or in anticipation of) a life event. Life events associated with an increase in car-based mobility include childbirth (Oakil et al. 2016 ; de Haas et al. 2018 ) and entering the workforce for the first time (Busch-Geertsema and Lanzendorf 2017 ). In contrast, life events associated with a decrease in car-based mobility are often associated with changes resulting in a reduction of income or change in activity patterns, such as unemployment or retirement (Oakil et al. 2014 ).

Overall, research in this field has shown that individuals are more likely to change their travel behaviour as a result of a life event than during stable circumstances (Clark et al. 2016b ). A ‘dissonant’ life event may induce an inconsistency between the frequency of using a travel mode and the attitudes towards that travel mode. For instance, in the case of childbirth, cycling frequency may reduce but positive attitudes towards cycling may remain. Conversely, a dissonance-reducing life event may create an opportunity for an individual to align their travel mode use with their attitudes to that travel mode. For instance, an individual with positive attitudes towards public transport moving home from a car-dependent location to a transit orientated location may reduce dissonance. It should be noted here that there are differing views regarding the hypothesized role of life events and inconsistencies between travel attitudes and behaviours. While Verplanken et al. ( 2008 ) posits that life events can prompt self-activation, enabling an individual to actively reflect on their optimal travel choices, applying cognitive dissonance theory, we are proposing that the life event may provide an opportunity to reconcile mismatches between travel attitudes and behaviours (rather than the self).

Using the four profiles of dissonant/consonant travellers described in Table 1 , we explore whether respondents who have experienced a life event between the two waves are more likely to transition into a different profile in the second wave. This analysis, which forms the second contribution of this paper, is largely exploratory.

Data source

The Netherlands Mobility Panel (knowns as the MPN) is an annual household panel survey that was set up to study the short-run and long-run dynamics in the travel behaviour of Dutch individuals and households, and to determine how changes in personal- and household characteristics, and in other travel-related factors, correlate with changes in travel behaviour (Hoogendoorn-Lanser et al. 2015 ). The first wave of data collection started in 2013 and the panel consists of approximately 2,000 complete households. Respondents are recruited by means of a screening questionnaire in which an adult household member is asked whether the whole household wants to participate in the MPN for several years. Yearly, after entering the panel, the same adult household member fills out a household questionnaire to gather basic information about the household. Furthermore, all household members of 12 years and older are asked to fill out an individual questionnaire and complete a three-day online travel diary. The individual questionnaire consists largely of questions that are repeated yearly. This includes questions regarding any life events that respondents have experienced in the previous 12 months. However, a special topic is repeated bi-annually. In the second and fourth waves of the MPN the special topic focused on attitudes and perceptions with regard to various modes of transportation. Therefore, the second (2014) and fourth (2016) waves of the MPN are used in this study. Table 2 presents basic demographics and life events among the survey sample.

In order to account for attrition and to maintain a representative sample, additional households are recruited yearly. In the second wave, additional focus was placed on recruiting certain groups (such as young and low educated people) since they were somewhat underrepresented in the first wave and had higher nonresponse levels. Due to attrition and recruitment of new households, there are some slight variations between waves in terms of sample composition. However, based on the so-called Gold Standard (which reflects the composition of the Dutch population on several personal- and household characteristics) it can be concluded that the sample is fairly representative for the Dutch population. The largest deviation is found on educational level, with an underrepresentation of low-educated people and an overrepresentation of high-educated people.

Defining segment membership

Table 3 presents the two measures used to determine segment membership: a composite measure of mode specific attitudes and the frequency of mode use. The measures derived from two sets of questions in the MPN survey. The MPN asks about attitudes towards travel by car, cycling and public transit. Six items are asked (Comfort/Relaxing/Saves time/Safe/Flexible/Pleasurable) measured on a five-point Likert scale ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”. Cronbach’s Alpha for all modes exceeded 0.8 (Table 3 ), indicating a sufficient level of internal consistency to allow for a composite score to be generated. Scores for each of the six items were combined, creating a scale ranging from 6 to 30. An average of the six items was then generated and rounded to the nearest integer, providing a value of between 1 and 5. The measure regarding mode use frequency derives from a question asking about frequency of car, public transport and bicycle use over the previous year. Responses were recoded to a five-point scale to align with the attitude measure.

The attitudinal measure does not directly align with more common psychological literature typically operationalising dissonance as an unpleasant feeling or tension. Nonetheless, cognitive dissonance theory explicitly states that people attempt to align their attitudes with behaviour. As such, the attitudinal measure we use in our study is still largely aligned with what CDT posits.

We used the two measures to categorise respondents into four groups based on their behaviour (frequent or infrequent) and attitudes (negative or positive). Each respondent was categorised into one of the four groups (Frequent-Positive; Frequent-Negative; Infrequent-Positive; Infrequent-Negative) for each mode (car, cycling and public transport). Respondents were categorised as “Infrequent” if they used the travel mode three days per month or less and “Frequent” if they used the travel mode at least weekly.

To allow a more equitable distribution of the four categories, respondents whose attitude towards a particular mode was a value of between 1 and 3 were classified as “Negative” and 4 or 5 as “Positive”. Classifying respondents with neutral attitudes towards cycling and car in either the positive or negative category had a minimal bearing on the results. However, as a large number of respondents held neutral attitudes towards public transport, changing whether they were grouped in the positive or negative category lead to a significant change in the size of the consonant and dissonant segments for this mode. However, if “neutral” attitudes were re-classified as “positive” for public transport use, this resulted in multiple segments with very few respondents. Therefore we continued the analysis with all “neutral” responses coded as negative. While this approach is imperfect, and the public transport results must be treated with some caution, it ensures all segments are of a sufficient size to allow for meaningful analysis.

Table 4 shows the size of each segment and the percentage of respondents in each behaviour or attitudinal category. Overall, the largest segments among each of the three modes are consonant. Given the considerably lower frequency of public transport use compared with cycling and car use among respondents, the largest segment size in the Car and Cycle mode is Frequent-Positive, whereas among the Public Transport mode it is the Infrequent-Negative group. The Car model has the largest share of consonant respondents (81%), followed by Cycling (76%) and Public Transport (68%).

Once the travellers were classified into consonant and dissonant groups, we conducted a logistic regression model that included initial segment membership for each of the modes. Seven life events were included and four exogenous variables (gender, employment status, age and location) as active covariates. The seven life events included: childbirth, partnership formation and dissolution, starting an education course, starting or stopping working and changing employment.

Segment profiles

Table 5 outlines the demographic characteristics of each of the twelve groups. As the characteristics of each segment is not the focus of this paper, these will not be discussed in detail. However, the profile of each segment is plausible. For example, those travellers typically comprising ‘captive’ transport markets, such as students (who are entitled to free public transit in The Netherlands), are underrepresented in the Frequent-Positive Car group but overrepresented in the Frequent-Negative Cycling and Public Transport Groups. This suggests that while members of these groups have a preference for car-based mobility, their current financial circumstances make car ownership unattainable and instead they use public transport or cycle. Similarly, Frequent Public Transport users, both negative and positive, are overrepresented in highly urbanised locations and underrepresented in rural locations, likely reflecting the different level of public transport service in the respective locations.

Stability of travel-related cognitive dissonance

Table 6 shows the movements between groups between Wave 1 (2014) and 2 (2016) for car, cycling and public transit modes respectively. Given earlier research (Kroesen et al. 2017 ), we would expect the consonant segments to be the most stable (and have the highest probability of remaining in the same segment in the second wave) and the dissonant segments to be the least stable. This is the case for the largest consonant segments within each mode. Approximately 89% of the FP Car segment remained in the same segment in Wave 2 with similar proportions for the FP Cycling (83%) and IN Public Transit segments (74%). However, the smallest consonant segments (IN Car, IN Cycling and FP Public Transit) were less likely to remain in the same segment in the second wave. This is likely due to forming a much smaller proportion of the sample (5% car; 15% cycling; 7% PT) and, as such, slight changes (which may in part be random, e.g. when resulting from random from measurement errors) may appear more pronounced.

Interestingly, across all modes, dissonant travellers were more likely to remain in the Infrequent-Positive segment between waves than their counterparts in the Frequent-Negative dissonant segment. For instance, approximately half of the 2014 IP segment for car (53%), cycling (51%) and public transport (48%) remained in this state in 2016. In contrast, the proportion of respondents remaining in the Frequent-Negative segments between waves was 34% (car), 32% (cycling) and 42% (public transport). This suggests infrequent use and positive attitudes are perhaps less of a motivator to reduce dissonance than frequent use and negative attitudes.

These findings address the first research question of this paper. The next section explores whether people who experience travel-related cognitive dissonance are more likely to change their travel behaviour or their attitudes.

Change in behaviour and attitudes among formerly dissonant travellers

A core aim of this paper was to explore whether respondents experiencing travel-related cognitive dissonance more likely to change their travel behaviour or attitudes. To explore this, we assessed the movements between segments, between waves. Respondents in one of the dissonant segments in 2014 (either ‘Frequent-Negative’ or ‘Infrequent-Positive’) could transition into a consonant segment in 2016 by adjusting either their attitudes or their behaviour.

We would expect Frequent Negative travellers to be travelling against their attitudes due to external factors, such as poor transport infrastructure or conceivably time, income or family limitations. As such, we would expect an adjustment in attitudes in order to move to a consonant group (FP). Interestingly, however, whether respondents in a dissonant segment changed their attitude or behaviour varied depending on the mode and their original segment (see Table 7 )

For both car travel and cycling, people who were IP in 2014 were more likely to change their behaviour than their attitude to become consonant travellers. Over 80% of IP drivers in 2014 who became consonant in 2016 did so because they drove more in 2016; 54% of IP cyclists did the same. In contrast, FN drivers and cyclists in 2014 who became consonant in 2016 were more likely to change their attitudes; 87% of FN drivers and 70% of cyclists who changed classification did so because they had a more positive attitude to the respective modes in 2016.

The pattern was reversed for public transport. Here, 73% of IP transit users who became consonant between 2014 and 2016 did this by reducing their attitude to public transport, becoming IN users. Among the FN public transport riders who became consonant in 2016, 80% did this by reducing their ridership (becoming IN).

These contrasting patterns may be explained by the baseline attitudes toward the three modes and considerably lower use of public transport among the sample. Overall attitudes toward cars and bicycles are more positive than public transport and only 20% of respondents are categorised as ‘frequent’ public transport users compared with 83% of car travellers and 70% of cyclists.

The final section of the findings addresses the third research question, exploring whether life events induce or reduce travel-related cognitive dissonance.

Life events and changes in dissonance

Table 8 presents the results of paired sample t-tests showing the changes in mean attitudes and behaviour between 2014 and 2016. The changes are presented overall and by respondents who have experienced a life event. It should be noted that these are derived from ordinal scales and no correction was made for multiple comparisons; however these initial results provide an indication of the direction of change between survey waves. Among the overall sample, there are marginally significant declines in cycling and increases in public transit use. There were no significant changes to attitudes towards each mode between the survey years. Interestingly, among the life events examined, only behaviour changes are significant suggesting that when experiencing a life event, behavioural rather than attitudinal changes create dissonance. However, as we are examining the aggregate changes this may mask changes apparent within individual groups.

Most life events analysed were associated with some behaviour change between the two survey years. Echoing findings from previous studies examining the effects of different life events on travel mode use, childbirth is associated with a slight decline in cycling (de Haas et al. 2018 ). Of note, partnership formation is associated with an increase in car-use and decrease in cycling. This is likely attributed to the new partner owning a vehicle and, as a result, more joint trips being conducted by car rather than cycling. An alternative interpretation could also be, however, that it is more cost-efficient to own a vehicle as couple, and, as a result respondents may have been more likely to purchase a vehicle in the intervening two years between the survey waves. Starting and stopping working is associated with an increase and decrease in car use, respectively. Stopping working is also associated with an increase in public transit use. These mode changes are likely a result of income or time-budget changes, as a result of changing employment status.

Starting an education course is associated with a decrease in cycling. This may reflect the local context, as in The Netherlands students can travel for free on public transport to and from their education institution. Finally, changing jobs (but not changing job location) is associated with an increase in car use and decrease in public transport use. This could reflect gaining a promotion and a subsequent increase in salary or obtaining a company car.

Table 9 presents the results of a logistic regression model that included initial segment membership for each of the modes and shows the probabilities of changing segments between 2014 and 2016 by type of life event. The results have been presented in this format rather than logit parameters for easier interpretation. Statistically significant movements between segments were evident among respondents who have experienced childbirth, partnership formation and dissolution, starting an education course and changing employment or employment location. However, across all life events and modes, respondents were equally likely to become either more consonant or more dissonant following a life event.

Of note, childbirth was associated with a greater likelihood of forming part of the IP Cycling segment and a lower likelihood of forming part of the FP Cycling segment. This reflects the decline in cycling evident in Table 6 and echoes previous research showing new parenthood is associated with a decline in cycling (Scheiner and Holz-Rau 2013 ; de Haas et al. 2018 ). Interestingly, childbirth is also associated with an increasing likelihood of forming part of the IN Public Transit segment. As public transit is commonly used for commuting, this may reflect the changes in activity patterns as result of taking parental leave and reduced use of this mode for work travel.

Partnership formation and dissolution were associated with slight movements between the segments. Partnership dissolution was associated with an increased likelihood of forming part of the IP Car and IP PT segment. In contrast, partnership formation increased the likelihood of forming part of the IN Cycling and PT segments. These changes could be attributed to the new partner bringing a car to the household (or, in the case of dissolution, taking away a car). Among respondents who experienced a partnership formation, vehicle ownership increased from 0.8 vehicles per household to 1.0 vehicles per household (compared to a slight decline in vehicle ownership across the entire survey sample). This suggests the new partner may bring a vehicle to the relationship or they may be more likely to purchase a new vehicle as a couple, with subsequent implications for the respondents’ daily travel behaviour.

Starting an education course is associated with a decreased likelihood of forming part of the Infrequent-Negative PT segment and increased likelihood of forming part of either Frequent Positive or Frequent Negative PT segment (although the latter two changes are not significant). This likely reflects the growth of public transit use during tertiary study and provision of reduced fares available to students.

Finally, the two employment life events were associated with only marginal movements between segments. Changing job was associated with a greater likelihood of forming part of the FP Car segment while changing job location was associated with a greater likelihood of forming part of the IN PT segment and a less likely to form part of the FP PT segment.

For some life events the results are difficult to interpret. Perhaps this is because the life event is not captured at a sufficiently granular level. For instance, life events resulting in location changes (such as moving house, changing jobs or changing job locations) will likely have varying effects depending on the spatial and temporal context of the change. Surprisingly, no significant effects were evident for starting or stopping employment.

Discussion and conclusion

This paper explored stability among dissonant and consonant travellers and whether dissonant travellers are more likely to adjust their behaviour or attitudes to reach a state of consonance. Moreover, it explored the role of life events in creating or reducing dissonance between travel attitudes and behaviours. Differences between travel attitudes and behaviour were explored by public transit, cycling and car use, using panel data. It should be noted there are limitations regarding the measure we used to assess dissonance and the dissonance strategies we tested (only behaviour or attitude change). The psychology literature has identified a range of other mechanisms to reduce dissonance, such as self-forgiving, denial of responsibility or forgetting about the dissonance (Kruglanski et al. 2018 ), that depend on the intensity of negative feeling and familiarity of the situation (Cancino-Montecinos et al. 2020 ). In a travel behaviour context, it is plausible people could adopt a range of these and other strategies to reduce dissonance. The implications of this limitation are discussed below.

Addressing our first research question, consistent with earlier research (Kroesen et al. 2017 ), between the survey years, dissonant travellers were more likely to change their segment membership than consonant travellers. Interestingly, dissonant travellers were more likely to remain in the Infrequent-Positive segment between waves than travellers in the Frequent-Negative segment. This suggests that infrequent use and positive attitudes are perhaps less cognitively distressing than frequent use and negative attitudes. This may be evidence that people are practicing a range of mental mechanisms to reduce this dissonance, such as self-forgiving or denial of responsibility (e.g. ‘I’d love to cycle but it’s not my fault it isn’t safe) (Kruglanski et al. 2018 ).

Should this indeed be true, then a straightforward implication for policy would be that positive attitudes, e.g. towards bicycle use, are not enough to increase the uptake of cycling. Instead, policies that negatively influence the attitudes towards alternative modes (e.g. the car) may potentially be more effective. Similarly, encouraging an increase in behavioural frequency for certain modes (e.g. encouraging infrequent-negative cyclists to cycle more frequently), may lead to more positive attitudes towards this mode.

In addition, from a scientific perspective, it would be interesting to explore whether dissonance resulting from infrequent use and positive attitudes is indeed less distressing than dissonance resulting from frequent use and negative attitudes. As shown by De Vos ( 2018 ) dissonance between the chosen and preferred mode also translates itself into travel dissatisfaction. This concept could be used to assess whether those belonging to the segment “frequent use and negative attitudes” are (even) more dissatisfied with their travel behaviour than those belonging to the segment “infrequent use and positive attitudes”.

Our second research question explored whether dissonant travellers were more likely to adjust their behaviour or attitudes. The results depended on the mode and their original class. A similar pattern was evident between car and cycling modes. Infrequent car travellers and cyclists with positive attitudes were more likely to increase their use than adjust their attitudes to reach a state of consonance in the following wave. Conversely, among frequent car-users and cyclists with negative attitudes, their attitudes were likely to become more favourable in the following wave. The reverse picture was evident for public transport; this is likely to be attributed to the baseline use and attitudes towards this mode being considerably lower than for car and cycling.

A general take-way from the results above is that, in line with the theory of cognitive dissonance, people may adjust both their attitudes and behaviours to achieve a state of consonance. From a policy perspective, this means that policymakers should not only focus on subtle nudges aimed at changing attitudes (and subsequently behaviours) in desirable directions but may also implement policies that aim to directly influence behaviours, e.g. by setting rules or pricing policies, assuming that attitudes will follow.

Finally, we explored whether life events induced or reduced dissonance. Nearly all of the life events included in the analysis were associated with changing levels of cognitive dissonance across at least one travel mode. However, across all life events participants were equally likely to become more or less consonant following a life event. And while certain life events were associated with behavioural changes between the two survey years, no life events were associated with attitudinal changes towards the travel mode. This suggests that following life events, behavioural rather than attitudinal changes tend to create dissonance. Future analysis, using data from subsequent waves, could explore whether there is a lag in attitude change following the behavioural change.

Life events associated with an increase in car-based mobility (either as a result of increasing car-use or decreasing use of cycling or public transit) included: childbirth, moving in with a partner, starting work and changing jobs. An increase in car-use, over time, is likely to contribute to the adoption of more favourable attitudes towards car-use. This, in turn, makes it less likely individuals will return to their former sustainable travel patterns, if, or when, their circumstances change. The adoption of more favourable attitudes towards car-use poses problems for transportation planners and policymakers seeking to encourage more sustainable travel modes. Further qualitative research may assist in unpicking the processes by which travel attitudes are adjusted (or not) to align with new travel behaviours. This would provide important insights to contribute to policies tasked at curbing the adoption of car-based mobility associated with certain life events.

Although the panel data provides a rich and detailed source of life events, several limitations exist. Due to the small number of respondents experiencing certain life events, some of the results were difficult to interpret. Furthermore, the classification of life events, especially those that instigated a relocation of work or home location, could be analysed at a more granular level. As data from future years becomes available, and more participants experience these life events, this will assist with interpreting the changing levels of cognitive dissonance associated with experiencing less common life events.

Further limitations regard the measures and classification process we adopted. As this was an exploratory analysis, we conducted an a priori classification. However, future analyses could adopt a post-hoc classification process which may yield more nuanced segments of behavioural and attitudinal adjustments made by dissonant travellers. Moreover, we assumed travellers were only to reach a consonant state through adjusting their attitudes or behaviours where we have acknowledged that multiple strategies (such as forgetting or trivialising) may also be adopted (Kruglanski et al. 2018 ). In addition, we did not account for the magnitude of the dissonance or familiarity of the situation in influencing the dissonance reduction strategy adopted (Cancino-Montecinos et al. 2020 ). As this was an exploratory study, aiming to test fundamental concepts of CDT, these topics are proposed for future research.

The panel data used in this analysis was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the anticipated structural changes to employment practices prompted by the pandemic, it may provide an opportunity for respondents to reconcile disparities between their travel attitudes and behaviour. For instance, respondents in the ‘Frequent-Negative’ categories for car or public transport may have the opportunity to work from home, reducing the need for commuting. Initial analysis of MPN respondents suggests that, of those respondents working at home during the pandemic, over a quarter expect to work from home more in the future (de Haas et al. 2020 ). Data from future waves will reveal the extent that this has transpired into changing travel practices and the subsequent impact this may have on reducing travel related cognitive dissonance.

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Book of Gary Becker’s unpublished work shows his evolution as an economist

Former colleagues and students draw upon nobel laureate’s drafts and notes of his approach to human behavior.

Prof. Gary Becker, AM'53, PhD'55, is regarded as one of the foremost economics scholars of the 20th century. The Nobel laureate broke new ground by approaching economics as the study of human behavior, and his contributions to the field continue to be felt, even a decade after his death in 2014.

A recently published book edited by Becker’s former colleagues and students draws upon his unpublished work to bring readers closer to the ever-evolving research of the pioneering economist—and perhaps inspires them to continue working where he left off.

The Economic Approach: Unpublished Writings of Gary S. Becker  (2023, UChicago Press) was brought to life through the editing by Profs. Julio J. Elias of the University of CEMA, Argentina; and UChicago Professors  Casey B. Mulligan  and  Kevin M. Murphy .

The process began when Guity Becker, Gary’s wife, gathered together a collection of her husband’s papers from over the years. These included drafts and notes of both his published and unpublished work, from sketches of initial ideas to near-completed papers.

“When Guity Becker shared with us these unpublished manuscripts, which I had never seen, we were all fascinated,” said Julio Elias, a former student, teaching assistant, research assistant and coauthor of Gary Becker’s. “It was like when Becker would send us his first thoughts on an idea; a problem that he thought was worth tackling with the economic approach because of the important insight that it could bring, especially when the implications would lead to ‘uncommon sense’ implications, typically considered controversial.”

The team worked to format the collection in a way that a reader could move through Becker’s work, organized by topics the late researcher spent considerable time working on. These categories included different parts of social science that, according to Mulligan, Becker believed didn't have enough of an economics lens on them yet: notably, taking an economic approach to human behavior, such as preference formation, rational indoctrination, income inequality, drugs and addiction, and the economics of family.

Elias did the bulk of organizing the papers, which sometimes included typing the papers that were not available in digital formats and produced a draft of the book. He, Mulligan and Murphy collaborated on writing introductions for each chapter, the chronological academic biography, and in putting together the list of dissertations that he chaired at Columbia University and UChicago.

“There's a lot of continuity in how he approached the world, but you can also see his evolution over time, given it covers such a wide range of his career,” Murphy said. “It gives you a perspective about how Gary was changing over time, learning more and trying to improve on the answers he had.”

Murphy said he expects many former students and colleagues may use the text as a way to reminisce about Becker’s impact on the field of economics, but also to get motivated to do more work along the path he forged—continuing to answer the questions he asked and maybe even finish projects he began.

“The reader will gain deeper insights into Gary Becker through these unfinished manuscripts,” Elias contended. “They hold significant value in providing a better understanding of Becker's craft of economic analysis, revealing his process: Gary Becker as a master of economic analysis.”

The text is also a resource for those less familiar with Becker the economist, but interested in the “edges” of economics.

“If you go through the topics in the book, many of them wouldn't be covered in your standard macro, micro, graduate or undergraduate textbook,” Murphy said. “The book could help people get interested in some of those areas that maybe they weren't exposed to directly.”

— Adapted from a story that was first published on the Division of the Social Sciences website .

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The Surprising Connection Between Universal School Meals and Student Discipline

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For Raniya Fisher, a senior at Ridgeland High School in Mississippi, lunchtime is about more than eating, it’s a time to recharge and build relationships.

Raniya, who plays basketball, eats in the gym with her teammates as way to build team cohesion. But she still goes to the cafeteria for a free meal, where she looks forward to her daily chats with the lunch ladies.

Raniya qualifies for free- and reduced-priced lunch, but she knows people at her school who don’t and struggle to afford lunch. She thinks school meals should be free for everyone.

“If you don’t eat at lunch you are just starving, and little things like that are a distraction,” she said. “The teacher could ask you one simple question, and you get mad, and you could get in it with the teacher because you didn’t eat lunch! You might be a little sleepy, but [when] you’re full, you’re in a positive attitude and ready to do your work.”

Now, a body of research supports the idea that giving free school meals to all students can be an important ingredient to nurturing a healthy school climate. Among new significant findings: The policy is linked to lower discipline rates among students because it reduces the stigma around receiving subsidized meals.

Whether it’s from the sustenance or the sense of community they provide, universal lunch appears to support many of the factors that make for a positive school climate, such as reducing discipline rates, tamping down on bullying, improving attendance, and alleviating the stigma for students from low-income families.

“There is a very important social dimension, which is when you are in the lunchroom, [universal meals] take away this mechanism of pointing out who is poor,” said Amy Schwartz, a professor in Joseph R. Biden School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Delaware. “Instead, you say, ‘we’re at school, we eat together, and this is what we eat.”

Students who are hungry have a harder time paying attention, and are more likely to act up in class, which affects both their ability to learn and behave, said Schwartz, who has studied the effects of universal free school meal programs in New York City. And there are a lot of students whose families make too much money to qualify for free- and reduced-priced meals but still struggle to afford food.

Taking away that stigma of qualifying for free and reduced priced meals may also drive down discipline rates.

Students—and teachers—can usually figure out who is getting subsidized meals from school, said Thurston Domina, a professor at the University of North Carolina’s school of education.

“We’ve got good research to suggest that students see that and that they associate school meals with poverty,” Domina said. “And we’ve got good research to suggest that stigma associated with poverty carries with students throughout the school day.”

Changing behavior—and perceptions

To isolate whether the stigma of receiving free and reduced priced meals played a role in discipline rates, Domina and researchers from the U.S. Census Bureau examined schools in Oregon, comparing those that started offering universal free school meals through the federal school meals program’s community eligibility provision to those that did not. By linking school data on free and reduced-price lunch enrollment and discipline referrals to data from the census and tax records, they were able to get a granular look at how the policy affected different students.

Complicating matters, students who do qualify for free or subsidized meals may not be receiving them, and, conversely, sometimes students whose families are too wealthy to qualify still end up enrolled in the federal meal program.

Providing universal free meals had the biggest effect on discipline rates, lowering them among kids who had received free- and reduced-priced meals prior to the adoption of the policy, and regardless of whether they were actually low-income or not, Domina said. That means it’s likely that removing the stigma of being labeled a poor kid is what drove down suspensions among those kids.

Removing that label may affect students’ behavior, he said, but it can also change teachers’ perceptions of their students leading to fewer suspensions.

In Domina’s view, “I think our findings are really encouraging for efforts to get free meals to more students,” he said. “I think getting nutrition into kids’ bodies is just a good thing for a society to do. And I think that our research suggests that doing so can help create happier and healthier and more egalitarian social environments in schools.”

Universal free school meals can also help improve attendance rates, said Schwartz, for a couple of different reasons: Attending and eating at school means families spend less money on groceries at home. A positive lunchroom experience free of stigma contributes to a better social experience overall, which means they might be more likely to be engaged in school and show up, Schwartz said.

“This isn’t the solution to our attendance problem, this isn’t the silver bullet, but you expect that it would help. Free school meals are the gift that keeps on giving in a bunch of different dimensions,” she said.

Additional research has found that universal free lunches may reduce bullying. And all of that contributes to a positive school climate, Schwartz said.

Chris Young, the principal of North Country Union High School in rural Vermont, can’t think of a particular instance of a student getting bullied for eating school meals, but his sense is that students internalized the label that they were poor.

“It would be hard to connect what a student is feeling to any behaviors—it could go either way,” he said. “They might act out, but they might be much more likely to be withdrawn and go into their shell.”

Kids who don’t qualify for free school meals often brought leftovers from home or go out for fast food, while students from low-income families sat in the lunchroom with cafeteria trays, Young said.

But now his school provides free breakfast and lunch to all students regardless of income. Vermont is among a small number of states, including California, Minnesota, and Massachusetts, that adopted universal free school meals following the pandemic.

Now that meals are free for all students, even those kids who can afford to eat out usually opt for the free meal, Young said.

“Kids are like, oh, well, if the meal is free, I’m just doing [that],” he said, and it’s improving the school’s culture. “It’s much more of a community when more kids are taking advantage of the school lunch program.”

Using the lunchroom to improve school climate

Young has leveraged the lunchroom in other ways to bolster his schools’ climate. When students returned to full-time in-person learning following the pandemic, Young replaced the long lunch tables with circular ones to encourage more conversation and connection among students as they made the transition from remote and hybrid learning.

Finally, the universal policies can catch students who fall through the cracks of the current system, said Schwartz. That’s the case for Kearston May, another high school student at Ridgeland High School in Mississippi, who said she skips lunch when the balance on her school meal account is getting too high.

“Sometimes I have to pick and choose my battles based on what I have in my lunch account and what I have to do that day,” said Kearston, who is in 11th grade and plays on the school’s volleyball team.

“On my athletic days, I try my best to eat. We are doing running and weightlifting, and knowing from past experiences not having something in your stomach can be very challenging,” she said.

On the days she doesn’t eat lunch, Kearston said she is drained by the end of the school day. She is thankful that the lunch ladies give her food even when she is in debt and give her a heads-up when the balance is getting so high it might be a problem. Students in her situation, Kearston said, are going to struggle in school.

“They are not thinking about school, they are not willing to learn,” Kearston said. “I think a free meal is one less thing to worry about.”

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Parents of Michigan School Shooter Sentenced to 10 to 15 Years in Prison

Jennifer and James Crumbley, whose son killed four people, each faced up to 15 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter convictions.

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By Jacey Fortin and Anna Betts

Jennifer and James Crumbley, who were convicted of involuntary manslaughter for failing to prevent their teenage son from killing four fellow students in the deadliest school shooting in Michigan’s history, were each sentenced on Tuesday to 10 to 15 years in prison.

Their separate jury trials ended in guilty verdicts in February and March , making them the first parents in the country to be convicted over the deaths caused by their child in a mass shooting.

Involuntary manslaughter charges carry a penalty in Michigan of up to 15 years in prison, and prosecutors asked in sentencing memos filed to the court last week that the Crumbleys each serve at least 10 years. Both have been in jail for more than two years while awaiting trial and will receive credit for time served.

“Parents are not expected to be psychic,” Judge Cheryl Matthews of the Oakland County Circuit Court in Pontiac, Mich., said before issuing the sentence. “But these convictions are not about poor parenting. These convictions confirm repeated acts or lack of acts that could have halted an oncoming runaway train — repeatedly ignoring things that would make a reasonable person feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up.”

Before the hearing, prosecutors said that Ms. Crumbley, 46, was asking to be sentenced to house arrest on her defense lawyer’s property, rather than serving prison time. And Mr. Crumbley, 47, said that he had been wrongly convicted and his sentence should amount to the time he had already served in prison, adding that he felt “absolutely horrible” about what had happened.

On Tuesday, each of them spoke in the hearing before the judge pronounced sentence.

“I stand today not to ask for your forgiveness, as I know it may be beyond reach, but to express my sincerest apologies for the pain that has been caused,” Ms. Crumbley said in court, addressing the relatives of students who were killed.

Mr. Crumbley also apologized. “I cannot express how much I wish that I had known what was going on with him or what was going to happen, because I absolutely would have done a lot of things differently,” he said.

Relatives of some of the victims also spoke during the hearing, describing the overwhelming effects the shooting had on their lives.

“The ripple effects of both James’s and Jennifer’s failures to act have devastated us all,” said Jill Soave, the mother of Justin Shilling, 17, who was killed in the shooting at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021. “This tragedy was completely preventable. If only they had done something, your honor, anything, to shift the course events on Nov. 30, then our four angels would be here today.”

Steve St. Juliana, whose daughter, Hana, 14, was killed, said that the Crumbleys continued to fail to take responsibility for what had happened.

“They chose to stay quiet,” he said. “They chose to ignore the warning signs. And now, as we’ve heard through all of the objections, they continue to choose to blame everyone but themselves.”

The Crumbleys’ son, Ethan, was 15 when he carried out the shooting that killed Justin and Hana, as well as Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Tate Myre, 16. Seven others were injured. Ethan Crumbley pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree murder, and was sentenced last year to life in prison without parole . He is still eligible to appeal that decision. His parents may appeal, too.

In the trials of both parents, prosecutors focused in part on their failure to remove their son from school after he made a violent drawing on the morning of the shooting. It included a written plea for help.

They also emphasized Ethan’s access to a handgun that Mr. Crumbley had purchased. And they said that Ms. Crumbley had missed signs that her son was struggling with his mental health, adding that she took him to a gun range just days before the shooting.

Defense lawyers for both parents said they could not have foreseen the unspeakable violence their son would commit.

Ms. Crumbley grew up in Clarkston, a Detroit suburb about 20 minutes from Oxford, her lawyer said during a hearing after the couple’s arrest in 2021 . Before her arrest, she had worked as a marketing director, her lawyer said.

Mr. Crumbley’s job history included work at a handful of small software and technology companies.

The couple once lived in Florida but returned to Michigan several years ago, their lawyers said. They bought their home near downtown Oxford in 2015.

The trials of Jennifer and James Crumbley became a lightning rod for issues of parental responsibility at a time of high-profile gun violence by minors. In recent months, parents in other states have pleaded guilty to charges of reckless conduct or neglect after their children injured or killed others with guns.

But the manslaughter charges against the Crumbleys were unique, and legal experts said their trials could serve as a playbook for other prosecutors who seek to hold parents accountable in the future.

Ekow Yankah, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, said the effect of the ruling on Tuesday might be felt beyond the state.

“This is going to be precedent, most obviously in Michigan and its home jurisdiction, but prosecutors all over the country will see this as a new and viable form of liability,” Mr. Yankah said. “I think we should not underestimate the precedential power of this case, even as we recognize that the facts were quite extraordinary.”

For Matthew Schneider, a former United States attorney in Michigan, what makes this case so different from many others is that most criminal sentences are related to the actions of a defendant, rather than being “about inactions, and how the inactions of a person result in a criminal sentence.”

The sentencing is “very much about making an example of the defendants,” Mr. Schneider said. “This is a shot across the bow to all parents, to all people who have firearms in their house, to keep them locked up, if they could be in the hands of the wrong people.”

Jacey Fortin covers a wide range of subjects for the National desk of The Times, including extreme weather, court cases and state politics all across the country. More about Jacey Fortin

Anna Betts reports on national events, including politics, education, and natural or man-made disasters, among other things. More about Anna Betts

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4 Things a Mountain of School Discipline Records Taught Us About Student Suspensions

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Every school day, thousands of students are suspended for vague, subjective reasons, such as defiance and disorderly conduct. The Hechinger Report’s investigative team recently took a deep dive into these punishments, based on 20 states for which we were able to obtain data. Our analysis revealed more than 2.8 million suspensions and expulsions from 2017-18 to 2021-22 under these ambiguous categories. 

Here’s a closer look at some of what we found:

1. Suspensions for these categories of behavior are incredibly common.

Our analysis found that nearly a third of suspensions and expulsions reported by states was meted out under these types of categories, which also included insubordination, disruptive behavior, and disobedience. 

In Alabama, educators have 56 categories to choose from as justification for student punishment; a full third in our sample were assigned for one of four vague violations. This is what the state calls them: “defiance of authority,” “disorderly conduct — other,” “disruptive demonstrations,” and “disobedience — persistent, willful.” 

In North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon, about half or more of all suspensions were classified in similar categories.

There are a few reasons why these categories are so widely used. For one, they often capture the low-level infractions that are most common in schools, such as ignoring a teacher’s direction, yelling in class or swearing. By comparison, more clearcut and serious violations, such as those involving weapons or illegal substances, are rarer. They made up only 2% and 9% of the discipline records, respectively. 

But experts also say that terms such as disorder or defiance are so broad and subject to interpretation that they can quickly become a catchall. For instance, in Oregon, the umbrella category of disruptive behavior includes insubordination and disorderly conduct, as well as harassment, obscene behavior, minor physical altercations, and “other” rule violations.

2. Educators classify a huge range of behavior as insubordination or disruption.

As part of our reporting, we obtained more than 7,000 discipline records from a dozen school districts across eight states to see what specific behavior was leading to suspensions labeled this way. It was a wide range, sometimes even within a single school district. Sometimes students were suspended for behavior as minor as being late to class; others, because they punched someone. And it was all called the same thing, which experts say prevents school discipline decisions from being transparent to students and the greater public. 

There were some common themes though, behaviors like yelling at peers, throwing things in a classroom or refusing to do work. We developed a list of 15 commonly repeated behaviors and coded about 3,000 incidents by hand, marking whether they described that type of conduct. We used machine learning to analyze the rest. 

In fewer than 15% of cases, students got in trouble for using profanity, or for talking back, or for yelling at school staff. In at least 20% of cases, students refused a direct order and in 6%, they were punished for misusing technology, including being on their cell phones during class or using school computers inappropriately.

3. Inequities can be even more pronounced in these ambiguous categories. 

We know from decades of research and federal data collection that Black students are more likely to be suspended from school than their white peers. In many places, that is especially true when it comes to categories like insubordination.

In Indiana, for example, Black students were suspended or expelled for defiance at four times the rate of white students on average. In 2021-22, eight Black students received this punishment per 100 students, compared with just two white students. In all other categories, the difference was three times the rate. Research suggests that teachers sometimes react to the same behavior differently depending on a child’s race. A 2015 study found that when teachers were presented with school records describing two instances of misbehavior by a student, teachers felt more troubled when they believed a Black student repeatedly misbehaved rather than a white student.

They “are more likely to be seen as ‘troublemakers’ when they misbehave in some way than their white peers,” said Jason Okonofua, assistant professor at University of California-Berkeley and a co-author of the study. Teachers are usually making quick decisions in situations where they are removing a child from the classroom, he said, and biases tend to “rear their heads” under those circumstances.

Similar disparities exist for students with disabilities . In all states for which we had demographic data, these students were more likely to be suspended for insubordination or disorderly conduct violations than their peers. In many states, those differences were larger than for other suspensions.

4. Suspension rates vary widely within states.

Further underscoring how much educator discretion exists in determining when or whether to suspend a student, individual districts report hugely different suspension rates. 

Take Georgia, for instance, which allows for students to be punished for disorderly conduct and “student incivility.” In 2021-22, the 3,300-student McDuffie County School System cited these two reasons for suspensions more than 1,250 times, according to state data. That’s nearly 40 times per 100 students. Similarly sized Appling County issued so few suspensions for disorderly conduct and student incivility that the numbers were redacted to protect student privacy. 

Editors’ note: The Hechinger Report’s Fazil Khan had nearly completed the data analysis and reporting for this project when he died in a fire in his apartment building. Read about the internship fund created to honor his legacy as a data reporter. USA TODAY Senior Data Editor Doug Caruso completed data visualizations for this project based on Khan’s work.

This story about school discipline data was produced by The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Proof Points newsletter .

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Far fewer young Americans now want to study in China. Both countries are trying to fix that

David Moser, an American and associate professor at Capital Normal University in Beijing, poses for a photo at the university, Friday, March 22, 2024 in Beijing, China. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students are at U.S. schools. Without these U.S. students, “in the next decade, we won’t be able to exercise savvy, knowledgeable diplomacy in China,” warned Moser, an American linguist who went to China in the 1980s and is now tasked with establishing a new master’s program for international students at Beijing Capital Normal University. (AP Photo/Dake Kang)

David Moser, an American and associate professor at Capital Normal University in Beijing, poses for a photo at a restaurant in Beijing, China, Friday, March 22, 2024. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students are at U.S. schools. Without these U.S. students, “in the next decade, we won’t be able to exercise savvy, knowledgeable diplomacy in China,” warned Moser, an American linguist who went to China in the 1980s and is now tasked with establishing a new master’s program for international students at Beijing Capital Normal University. (AP Photo/Dake Kang)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he sees interest among fellow scholars wane even after China reopened.

Common concerns, he said, include restrictions on academic freedom and the risk of being stranded in China.

These days, only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of close to 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at U.S. schools.

Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see as diminishing economic opportunities and strained relations between Washington and Beijing.

Whatever the reason for the imbalance, U.S. officials and scholars bemoan the lost opportunities for young people to experience life in China and gain insight into a formidable American adversary.

And officials from both countries agree that more should be done to encourage the student exchanges, at a time when Beijing and Washington can hardly agree on anything else.

“I do not believe the environment is as hospitable for educational exchange as it was in the past, and I think both sides are going to need to take steps,” said Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.

The U.S. has advised its. citizens to “reconsider travel” to China over concerns of arbitrary detentions and widened use of exit bans to bar Americans from leaving the country. Campbell said this has hindered the rebuilding of the exchanges and easing the advisory is now under “active consideration.”

For its part, Beijing is rebuilding programs for international students that were shuttered during the pandemic, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has invited tens of thousands of U.S. high school students to visit.

The situation was far different after President Barack Obama started the 100,000 Strong initiative in 2009 to drastically increase the number of U.S. students studying in China.

By 2012, there were as many as 24,583 U.S. students in China, according to data by the Chinese education ministry. The Open Doors reports by the Institute of International Education, which only track students enrolled in U.S. schools and studying in China for credit, show the number peaked at 14,887 in the 2011-12 school year. But 10 years later, the number was down to only 211.

In late 2023, the number of American students stood at 700, according to Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China, who said this was far too few in a country of such importance to the United States.

“We need young Americans to learn Mandarin. We need young Americans to have an experience of China,” Burns said.

Without these U.S. students, “in the next decade, we won’t be able to exercise savvy, knowledgeable diplomacy in China,” warned David Moser, an American linguist who went to China in the 1980s and is now tasked with establishing a new master’s program for international students at Beijing Capital Normal University.

Moser recalled the years when American students found China fascinating and thought an education there could lead to an interesting career. But he said the days of bustling trade and money deals are gone, while American students and their parents are watching China and the United States move away from each other. “So people think investment in China as a career is a dumb idea,” Moser said.

After 2012, the number of American students in China dipped but held steady at more than 11,000 for several years, according to Open Doors, until the pandemic hit, when China closed its borders and kept most foreigners out. Programs for overseas students that took years to build were shuttered, and staff were let go, Moser said.

Amy Gadsden, executive director of China Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, also attributed some of the declining interest to foreign businesses closing their offices in China. Beijing’s draconian governing style, laid bare by its response to the pandemic, also has given American students a pause, she said.

Garrett, who is on track to graduate this summer from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, said he is ambivalent about working in China, citing the lack of access to information, restrictions on discussions of politically sensitive issues and China’s sweeping anti-spying law. He had lived in Hong Kong as a teenager and interned in mainland China, and said he is still interested in traveling to China, but not anytime soon.

Some American students remain committed to studying in China, said Andrew Mertha, director of the China Global Research Center at SAIS. “There are people who are interested in China for China’s sake,” he said. “I don’t think those numbers are affected at all.”

About 40 U.S. students are now studying at the Hopkins-Nanjing center in the eastern Chinese city, and the number is expected to go up in the fall to approach the pre-pandemic level of 50-60 students, said Adam Webb, the center’s American co-director.

Among them is Chris Hankin, 28, who said he believed time in China was irreplaceable because he could interact with ordinary people and travel to places outside the radar of international media. “As the relationship becomes more intense, it’s important to have that color, to have that granularity,” said Hankin, a master’s student of international relations with a focus on energy and the environment.

Jonathan Zhang, a Chinese American studying at the prestigious Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said it was more important than ever to be in China at a time of tense relations. “It’s really hard to talk about China without being in China,” he said. “I think it’s truly a shame that so many people have never stepped foot in China.”

Zhang was met with concerns when he deferred an offer at a consulting firm to go Beijing. “They’re like, ‘oh, be safe,’ or like, ‘what do you mean, you’re going back to China?’” Zhang said. “I feel like the (Chinese) government is trying with an earnest effort, but I feel like a lot of this trust has been broken.”

Gadsden said U.S. universities need to do more to nudge students to consider China. “We need to be more intentional about creating the opportunities and about encouraging students to do this deeper work on China, because it’s going to be interesting for them, and it’s going to be valuable for the U.S.-China relationship and for the world,” she said.

In China, Jia Qingguo, a professor of international relations and a national political adviser, has suggested Beijing clarify its laws involving foreign nationals, introduce a separate system for political reviews of foreign students’ dissertations, and make it easier for foreign graduates to find internships and jobs in Chinese companies.

Meanwhile, China is hosting American high school students under a plan Xi unveiled in November to welcome 50,000 in the next five years.

In January, a group of 24 students from Iowa’s Muscatine High School became the first to travel to China. The all-expenses-paid, nine-day trip took them to the Beijing Zoo, Great Wall, Palace Museum, the Yu Garden and Shanghai Museum.

Sienna Stonking, one of the Muscatine students, now wants to return to China to study.

“If I had the opportunity, I would love to go to college in China,” she told China’s state broadcaster CGTN. “Honestly, I love it there.”

Kang reported from Beijing.

ASU applied behavior analysis program recognized in Four Corners region

Lorraine Becerra (left), clinical assistant professor, and graduate student Kerri Hohn (right) at the Four Corners ABA Conference. Courtesy photo

Helping students with learning disabilities succeed in school and modeling effective communication skills are just two examples of how applied behavioral analysis improves lives.

Since launching almost nine years ago, the Master of Science in applied behavioral analysis program (MS ABA) in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University has seen much success. MS ABA faculty and students recently attended the Four Corners Association for Behavior Analysis conference and came home laden with recognitions.

The Four Corners ABA is a regional association composed of board-certified behavioral analysts and students in training to become behavioral analysts from Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. The association hosts a conference each year that focuses on sharing knowledge between faculty, students and practitioners.

Lorraine Becerra , a clinical assistant professor at ASU, was elected to the Four Corners ABA Board of Directors for a three-year term. Candidates for the board must have a faculty position in an applied behavioral analysis program or work as a clinician. They are nominated by members of the association and elected by popular vote.

“It is important that our program has a voice in this organization because our MS ABA students at ASU are very dynamic and are interested in learning how to expand the reach of applied behavioral analysis,” Becerra said. “With my position on the board of directors, I am looking forward to bringing attention to some nontraditional areas of behavioral analysis, such as organization structure and social justice.”

This year’s Four Corners ABA conference was the first time presenting a research poster for ASU student Kerri Hohn. They won best poster presentation for the research conducted for their capstone project. Hohn’s project examined the effect of different ways of giving and receiving feedback in a workplace environment.

“By presenting my work at this conference, I learned that the goal of research is not perfection — it is to collaborate with others who are also passionate about expanding the outskirts of knowledge,” they said.

The results of Hohn’s capstone project highlighted the importance of building a culture of regular feedback and how it can positively impact how people respond to and feel about feedback. The findings also built upon previous research, showing the impacts of giving and receiving feedback in different ways.

“I came to ASU because the course structure was well designed to prepare students for the BCBA exam. Once I started the program, I understood why the program also has a high pass rate for the exam — the faculty are all-stars in the field who have a wide array of experiences they share with us,” Hohn said.

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Bald eagle eats 2 of its hatchlings in West Virginia out of 'confusion', officials say

A spokesperson of the u.s. fish and wildlife service explained that such incidents, though rare, are not unusual, especially among birds of prey..

In a tragic turn of events, two baby bald eaglets that hatched this week at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, were killed by their bald eagle father , who ate them.

One of eaglets passed away Monday night, while the other died shortly after being born on Friday, the National Conservation Training Center said.

"While this behavior was unusual, there's much we don't know," NCTC said in a social media post Friday . "This nest has brought us joy for years, raising countless eaglets for two decades. While this year's nesting season was not easy, it has offered a rare glimpse into the complexities of nature and the challenges that bald eagles face."

A spokesperson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed the death of the second hatchling to USA TODAY Friday and explained that such incidents, though rare, are not unusual, especially among birds of prey. The spokesperson added that the population of the bald eagle, which is also the national symbol of the United States, has continued to soar, with an estimated 316,700 individual bald eagles in the lower 48 states.

The population of the bald eagle has more than quadrupled since 2009, said the spokesperson, adding that the above estimate is based on the most recent survey done in 2019 and eagle populations are likely higher now.

Animal killed: Baby giraffe named 'Saba' at Zoo Miami dies after running into fence, breaking its neck

Father consumed eaglets in 'confusion', officials say

Earlier, in a social media post Tuesday, the NCTC had said that an eaglet passed away Monday night "despite a promising start," after its father "consumed" it in confusion.

The eaglet had hatched around 11:30 a.m. Monday at the center and was doing well, enjoying its first fish meal around 5 p.m., a photo of which the center shared on social media.

"Unfortunately, just about two hours after the female gently fed fish to the eaglet, the male bald eagle returned to the nest and exhibited unexpected behavior," said the center, adding that the 4.5-year-old male eagle was confused with the eaglet's presence.

The male eagle was rough with the eaglet and eventually consumed the hatchling.

Officials say behavior by bald eagle father isn't uncommon

"This behavior, while heartbreaking, has been observed in other nests and is not uncommon in birds of prey," the center had said. "Bird behavior is complex and driven by hormones and instinct."

"Bald eagles are naturally predatory and aggressive; that's the only way they can survive. Every day, they hunt to live," the center added.

While the hatchlings have died, the nest continues to be under protection at the center, which is a closed facility. Authorities have warned the public from causing any harm to the male eagle, emphasizing that the death of the two hatchlings is part of nature's cycle.

Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter @saman_shafiq7.

Watch CBS News

Biden is canceling $7.4 billion in student debt for 277,000 borrowers. Here's who is eligible.

By Aimee Picchi

Edited By Alain Sherter

Updated on: April 12, 2024 / 3:29 PM EDT / CBS News

The Biden administration on Friday said it's canceling $7.4 billion in student debt for 277,000 borrowers, with the recipients scheduled to receive emails today to alert them to their loan discharges. 

The latest effort extends the debt relief provider under President Joe Biden after the Supreme Court last year blocked  his administration's plan for broad-based student loan forgiveness. With the latest batch of loan cancellations, the White House said it has forgiven about $153 billion in debt for 4.3 million student borrowers. 

Biden, who had made student loan relief a major campaign pledge, is tackling an issue that affects about 43 million Americans with a combined  $1.7 trillion in student debt. It's a burden that some borrowers and their advocates say has harmed their ability to save for a home or achieve financial milestones, an issue that was echoed by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in a conference call with reporters. 

"I talked to a teacher in New York this week who took out a loan for $30,000," Cardona said Friday, "and after over a decade of paying and being a teacher the debt was $60,000, and she was saying that the interest was so high that the payments that she was making wasn't even touching her principal."

He added, "We are fixing a broken system. We're relentless and taking steps to transform a broken system into one that works people across the country."

Here's what to know about who is eligible for the latest round of forgiveness.

Who qualifies for the student loan forgiveness?

Three groups of people qualify under the latest round of debt relief, the White House said. 

• $3.6 billion for 206,800 borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan.

About $3.6 billion will be forgiven for nearly 207,000 borrowers enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, an income-driven repayment program, or IDR, that the Biden administration created last year. 

The White House said borrowers who are getting their debt discharged under SAVE had taken out smaller loans for their college studies. The plan allows people to receive forgiveness after they made at least 10 years of payments if they originally took out $12,000 or less in loans to pay for college; borrowers with larger loans are eligible after 20 or 25 years of repayment, depending on what types of loans they have. 

 "You sacrifice and you've saved for a decade or more to make your student loan payments, and you originally borrowed $12,000 or less, you're going to see relief," Cardona told reporters. "An overwhelming number of those who qualify for SAVE were eligible for Pell grants and come from low- and middle-income communities."

• $3.5 billion for 65,700 borrowers in income-repayment plans.

These borrowers will receive forgiveness through "administrative adjustments" to repayment plans where loan servicers had made it tougher for some borrowers to qualify for relief.  

"These are people who paid for a long time but were being deprived of relief because of administrative and servicing failures," Cardona said. "These people met the contract of their loan" and will receive forgiveness.

• $300 million for 4,600 borrowers through Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF).  

The PSLF program is designed to help public servants like teachers and government employees achieve debt forgiveness after 10 years of repayment. It's a program that started in 2007 but had been plagued with complex rules that effectively hampered people from getting their debt discharged, with only 7,000 receiving loan forgiveness prior to the Biden administration. 

With the latest round of discharges, the Biden administration has forgiven $62.8 billion in loans for 876,000 borrowers through PSLF. 

Are there legal challenges to Biden's debt forgiveness plans?

In two separate lawsuits, Republican attorneys general in 18 states are pushing to have the SAVE plan tossed and to halt any further student debt cancellation. They say the SAVE plan oversteps Biden's authority and makes it harder for states to recruit employees. They also contend the plan undermines a separate cancellation program that encourages careers in public service.

It's unclear what the suits could mean for loans that have already been canceled. A court document filed by Kansas' attorney general says it's "unrealistic to think that any loan forgiveness that occurs during this litigation will ever be clawed back."

—With reporting by the Associated Press.

• Biden Administration
• Student Loan

Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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