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consumers put a high priority on the environmental issues and consider an electric car
as fitting their personal needs, whereas being not sensitive to (anti)conformist drives
at all.
Obviously, both types of adopters are likely to be present in the early stages, and
also mixed types can be envisaged. The situation changes when the diffusion
proceeds. The more consumers adopt, the more a conformity pressure may stimulate
social sensitive consumers to adopt as well. Hence the motivational setting concern-
ing the adoption of an electric car will change during the process, and different types
of consumer (segments) are more likely to adopt at different moments in the diffusion
process. We propose that it is important in the context of policy supporting diffusion
that at different times during the diffusion process different policy measures target
different segments of consumers. For example, in the beginning of the diffusion it is
more efficient to stress the uniqueness of the electric car, whereas at later stages other
consumers can be approached with a message that an electric car is about to become
the norm. Also the effects of improving the range of electric cars, shortening the
charging time and changing fuel and electricity process will have serious effects on
the diffusion, and should be incorporated in diffusion scenarios.
The dataset collected by Bockarjova (2012) is containing almost 500 variables de-
scribing 3000 respondents. Questions address a.o. transportation behavior on a very
detailed level, perception of electric and fuel cars on many different attributes (envi-
ronment, status, safety, range), valuations of different aspects (e.g. charging times,
infrastructure, willingness to change) and many personal characteristics (e.g., know-
ledge, involvement, demographics). This allows for parameterizing an agent based
architecture that elaborates on the needs and personal characteristics driving the deci-
sion making of agents. The consumat approach offers a framework describing agents'
needs and abilities as drivers of decision making. Since the introduction of the con-
sumat in 2000 (Jager, 2000, Jager et al, 2000; Janssen & Jager, 2002), the consumat
approach is being used as a generic model of human behavior on the decisions people
make in satisfying their basic needs in various settings. The consumat approach offers
a simulation framework that captures some of the main behavioural principles as dis-
cussed in the literature on consumer behaviour. Whereas the model is not capable of
simulating elaborate cognitive processes, logical reasoning or morality in agents, it
does allow for simulating a number of key processes that ensemble capture human
decision making in a variety of situations, such as consumers purchasing products,
farmers deciding on a crop, citizens deciding where to live, and other situations where
people select a behavior from a set of possibilities. Computer simulations are being
increasingly used in a policy context; proposed consumat framework may become a
relevant tool to serve the purposes of policy and practice as a framework that captures
the main drivers and processes of human behavior altogether.
In 2012 (Jager & Janssen, 2012) we updated the consumat approach to improve the
decisional strategies and to address network issues more explicitly. In the following
section we will discuss the different elements in the consumat architecture and show
what empirical data will be used to parameterize these elements.
