Revista de Psicología (Sep 2019)
Driving and Anger: from one risk to another
Abstract
Anger is a basic emotion and one of the most studied in Psychology, specially its relationship to aggression and hostility. In the field of Psychology applied to transportation, although recently considered, the studies about the impact of anger on driving behavior had increased exponentially over the last few years. This research showed that controlling anger and hostility on the wheel may have important implications in accident prevention and this is the main goal of this work. In particular, we address our work to ask several questions: which situations in driving leads to anger and hostility? Can we identify the different kinds of drivers more prone to anger in the type of driving situations proposed by the Driving Anger Scale? Can we establish some links among driving anger, the different ways of expressing that anger, traffic violations and self-reported accidents? So, a sample of 1159 young drivers, ranging from 18 to 25 years old answered the French adaptation of the Driving Anger Scale (Deffenbacher et al., 1994) and a set of items from the Driving Behavior Questionnaire (Reason, Manstead, Stradling, Baxter & Campbell, 1990). The results of the study will be presented in this article. In parallel, a qualitative study is underway (interviews with young drivers). This will allow us to get more detailed information about exposure, near-accidents, feelings of anger, aggressive behaviors and situations which may lead to hostile actions and emotions.
