Compliance of Ultra-Orthodox and Secular Pedestrians With Traffic Lights in Ultra-Orthodox and Secular Locations
Previous research findings indicated Israeli pedestrians in an ultra-orthodox environment committed as much as three-times the traffic violations of secular environment pedestrians, age and gender notwithstanding (Rosenbloom, Nemrodov, & Barkan, 2004). As religious society usually prioritize a religiously-sanctioned law over the state law (Yagil & Ratner, 2002), the traffic violations bias found in the ultra-orthodox environment is, presumably, the result of different sets of road crossing behavior norms in secular and ultra-orthodox environment.
The present study set to examine the influence of both in-group and out-group road crossing norms. Specifically, it focused on the road behaviors of pedestrians both in their own in-group environment and in an out-group environment, and observed whether ultra-orthodox pedestrian ―give in‖ to secular crossing norms when crossing in a secular city; and vice versa, whether secular pedestrians adopt local crossing behavior when crossing at an ultra orthodox city crosswalk.
