Driver aggression – in the eye of the beholder?
PhD Candidate Lauren Shaw looks into the psychology of driver aggression and explains how personality and mood can influence on-road events.
Just like most children, I was a curious toddler and drove my parents crazy with a constant stream of ‘why’ questions. Why is the sky blue? Why are there waves in the ocean? Why can’t I have cake for lunch?’ Unlike most children however, I didn’t outgrow it. As I became older and started to notice the peculiar ways that people interact with each other, my focus shifted toward the curiosities of human behaviour.
So it came as no surprise that twenty years later, I’ve found myself a student of social psychology; examining how people behave in social and group situations. One such situation I find intriguing is the driving environment; particularly, the heightened and often uncharacteristic levels of anger and aggression people often display when they drive.
Since I witnessed a friend who most people would describe as timid, launch an onslaught of expletives that would make a sailor blush when stuck behind a slow driver; this Jekyll and Hyde phenomenon has fascinated me. If someone pushes in line at the supermarket, most people would politely bring the mistake to their attention, even if they suspect it wasn’t a mistake. However, when we think someone has ‘cut in front of us’ on the road, it’s met with a honk of the horn, a few choice words and often a wave using only the middle finger. So what is it about driving that makes people so angry and more inclined to express this anger? When the opportunity to investigate this for my PhD research was presented to me, I couldn’t resist.
And it seemed to be part of an important problem area too: Australia’s roads claimed 1,300 lives during the 12 months[1] to December 2012 – representing a 1.8 per cent increase over the previous 12 months. What’s more, driving with heightened levels of aggression has been found to significantly increase crash risk[2], so its concerning that a 2011 AAMI[3] survey found that 86 per cent of motorists believe drivers are becoming more aggressive.
In the survey, motorists were asked how they believe driver aggression should be responded to. Eighty-one per cent said it would be best to simply ignore it; three per cent endorsed responding with verbal abuse and one per cent endorsed tailgating. However, the results concerning what actually happens paint a vastly different picture.
Over half of the respondents admitted to yelling and swearing, 38 per cent made rude gestures, and 18 per cent confessed to deliberately tailgating another driver. Even more bizarrely, when asked if they thought their response was justified, an overwhelming 82 per cent answered ‘yes’.
So it appears that where aggressive driving is concerned, although we think it’s wrong, we do it anyway and we’re not sorry about it. Why?
Emerging research suggests how drivers interpret events they encounter on the road plays a key role and the title of a 2011 research papers sums it up perfectly: ‘You’re a bad driver, but I just made a mistake’[4].
To illustrate, consider a common driving behaviour such as being ‘cut-off’. This behaviour can be a source of frustration for many drivers and understandably gives many motorists a fright. But whether ‘cutting off’ is perceived as an innocent mistake or a malicious, deliberate act will have an important effect on how it is responded to. If it is perceived as intentional, research suggests the driver is likely to feel justified in responding with aggressive behaviour (such as honking the horn) because it is perceived as teaching the rude driver a lesson for their poor driving performance[5].
Although this lesson is one many drivers are quite readily prepared to give, it’s not one they’re open to when on the receiving end. The driver doing the ‘cutting off’ is more likely to explain it as a simple mistake, yet the driver behind believes they’ve been the victim of a purposely dangerous act. The cut-off driver honks the horn to teach a lesson, but the driver doing the cutting feels criticised for an innocent mistake, and thus completely justified in retaliating with the middle finger. Meanwhile, the cut-off driver’s perception of rudeness is confirmed, and they each feel satisfied in having responded appropriately.
This is referred to in psychology as the ‘actor-observer effect’ – whereby people overemphasise external, unstable, situational factors when explaining their own poor behaviour (i.e., when they are the actor) yet explain someone else’s similarly poor behaviour (i.e., when they are the observer) in terms of some stable, dispositional defect in the other[6].
So next time someone beeps the horn at you and you wonder what their problem is, remember- they could very well think it’s you!
Lauren Shaw is a PhD Candidate from the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety-Queensland (CARRS-Q), based at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. She completed her undergraduate psychology degree at Griffith University, graduating with first class honours. Before commencing her PhD, Lauren worked in research at the Viertel Centre for Research in Cancer Control at Cancer Council Queensland and the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention.
[1] Department of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economies. (2013). Road Deaths Australia-December 2012. Australian Government: Canberra, Australia.
[2] Beirness, D. (1993). Do we really drive as we live? The role of personality factors in road crashes. Alcohol Drugs & Driving, 9(4), 129-143.
[3] Australian Associated Motor Insurers Limted. (2011). Crash Index: Annual Road Safety Index. Australian Associated Motor Insurers Limted.
[4] Lennon, A., Watson, B., Arlidge, C., & Fraine, G. (2011). `You're a bad driver but I just made a mistake': Attribution differences between the `victims' and `perpetrators' of scenario-based aggressive driving incidents. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 14(3), 209-221.
[5] Lennon, A., & Watson, B. (2011). “Teaching them a lesson?” A qualitative exploration of underlying motivations for driver aggression. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 43(6), 2200-2208.
[6] Weiner, B. (1986). An attributional theory of motivation and emotion. London Springer-Verlag.
ccollin6
September 26, 2013 at 1:42 am
Aggressive Driving
Perception is reality to the perceiver. The explanation given is true. If individuals feel disrespected they will respond with aggression even when they know that sociologically that is not appropriate. But however the insight of a man can slow down his anger.