Psychology 409a 10/26/05

Psychology 409a 10/26/05

My Fourth Outline of Assigned Readings

By Ashley Hooks

Educating Children about Road Rage

Reference: James, Leon Ph.D., and Nahl, Diane Ph.D. Road Rage and Aggressive Driving: Steering Clear of Highway Warfare. New York: Prometheus Books, 2000. Pages 158-165.

Instructions for this activity are found at:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/409a-g23-oral.htm

Instructor: Dr. Leon James

My Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409af2005/hooks/home.htm

The G23 Class Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/classhome-g23.htm

I. Defining Aggression and Sensitizing Children to Aggression

A. This activity designed for children contains 7 parts that helps a child to learn about aggression by observing drivers. It has many parts that give the child a chance to identify how they feel while in the car with a driver, and identify their current ideas about how one should drive.

B. One part of the activity requires the child to choose who they think is a better driver:

-One who gets to a place in the least amount of time as possible

-One that gets to a place safely without taking any dangerous chances along the way

-A race car driver

This part helps the child to get a perspective on what they already think about safe driving and then to realize if they were right or wrong when they chose who was the better driver.

C. I think this activity is a very good activity for children to go through so they start learning early on, way before they begin to drive, how to be safe on the roads. If they go into driver education and on to get their license with the knowledge and awareness of aggression, I believe it will make them much safer drivers in the long run.

II. Children Observing Driving

A. This activity is another one for children that uses a form the child is supposed to fill out while riding in the car. This active observing helps the child to pinpoint safety and etiquette that is either used or not used by the drivers they are watching. It can also help them to realize the bad consequences of aggressive driving such as yelling or gestures by that driver.

B. This form that instructs the child to identify actions like: yelling, using foul language, talking badly about another driver, making you(the passenger) feel anxious or scared, etc. This really helps the child to recognize aggression especially if they are doing this activity more than once and comparing different actions on different trips with the same driver or even between two different drivers.

C. This activity is as important as the other activity in my opinion because it is hands-on experience for the child to observe behaviors. It ties in with the chapter about improving your own driving because it uses the same general concept of stepping out of yourself and just paying attention to what you are doing as a driver, and therefore what the child sees you doing as a driver.

III. Drivers Behaving Badly Ratings

A. This activity encourages the parents and teachers to point out drivers behaving badly on TV. If they point this behavior out to the child and explain to them why they are bad drivers and why it is aggressive behavior, then the children are not getting the wrong idea. It also encourages children to do homework on this by writing down things they see on their own while watching TV, dealing with drivers and aggressive behavior. They then bring these observations to class and the class has a discussion comparing the different students’ observations.

B. One example of a show that a child would watch normally and observe aggressive driving would be Tiny Toon Adventures. Even though it is a cartoon, it still has many scenes where the characters are racing somewhere, with the car almost turning over and racing around sharp turns and so on.

C. I think the active participation of children watching their favorite shows and picking out these bad driving behaviors is very helpful for their knowledge on the subject. I can fully remember watching cartoons and when I think about it, I can remember constantly seeing scenes where the drivers were maneuvering the cars in a way that is very dangerous. I can see how this could have an effect on the way people drive when they get their licenses.