Theory of planned behaviour, psychological stressors and intention to avoid violating traffic rules: A Multi-Level modelling analysis

•A multilevel modelling analysis was used to investigate the influence of stressors on intention to avoid violations, guided by the framework of the Theory of Planned Behaviour.•Within-person variables, injunctive norm being the most predictive variable, followed by self-efficacy.•Between-person variable, work-family conflict, in particular, may have direct impact on intentions.•Stressors indirectly influence intentions, transferred by the effects of the attitude, control, social and moral norms.•The in (direct) effect of stressors on intention formation could be as a potential target for accident prevention and intervention. This study applies a multilevel model approach to test the predictive effect of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) plus moral norm, past behaviour and crash history to account for intentions to avoid traffic violations within the context of commuting to or from work. This study also extended the theory by adding psychological stressors of perceived stress and work-family conflict. In this study, we systematically tested the direct and mediated models. A sample of Malaysian drivers (N = 482; 44.6% were men and 55.4% women), with the average age of 36.7 years (SD = 10.0) was surveyed. The self-report questionnaire contained multiple observations nested within individual drivers, with respect to 3 different driving violations. As predicted, multi-level modelling showed that within-person predictor variables of all the TPB components emerged as independent predictors, with injunctive norm being the most predictive variable, followed by self-efficacy and cognitive attitude. Intention was also predicted by moral norms and crash history. Between-person variables, gender, commuting hours and work-family conflict also had direct influences on intention (i.e., men and those with longer commuting hours and higher work-family conflict reported lower intentions). Substantial support for the mediation model was found, confirming that stressors indirectly influence intentions through effects on the social cognitive components. The implications of the linkage between the social cognition and stressors for developing potential broader interventions focusing on multiple violation behaviours and designing appropriate safety policies to reduce commuting crashes are discussed.