Psychology 409a, October 3, 2005

My First Outline of Assigned Readings

By Yu Takebayashi

Age, Gender, Type of Car, and Aggressive Driving

Reference 8: The Effect of Age, Gender, and Type of Car Across States; By Dr. Leon James and Dr. Diane Nahl, http://www.drdriving.org/surveys/interpretations.htm#rage

Instructions for this activity are found at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/409a-g23-oral.htm
Instructor: Dr. Leon James

Concept 1: Aggressiveness Self-rating Survey

A. A survey presented online at the drdriving.org site which about 1100 people responded to.

Main findings:

· Men tended to rate themselves higher than women.

· Young people reported to be more aggressive, the seniors were the least.

· Drivers with sports cars, trucks, or utility vehicles were the most aggressive, luxury car drivers being the least.

· When the type of car and gender were studied together, the most aggressive was sports cars driven by men, the next being utility vehicles driven by men, and the third most aggressive being women driving trucks. The least aggressive was women driving vans, but males driving vans saw themselves as much more aggressive. Women were found to be more aggressive driving family cars than men.

B. These findings show that there is a cultural norm affecting the self-perceived aggressiveness of drivers. Men are seen to be the gender with more power and aggressiveness; women are “supposed” to be more reserved and not acting upon their angry feelings. It is obvious that seniors are seen to be a lot less aggressive than the younger people. This is how the culture sees certain age groups and genders to be, although they may not be necessarily true.

C. I chose this topic because the findings from this survey weren’t surprising at all to me. I can totally see why sports cars, trucks, or utility vehicles are at the top of the cars of aggressive drivers. I have personally experienced the “power trip” with being in a big car on the road. I think that the flashier a car is, the greater the possibility of the driver becoming aggressive in it. A lot of people like showing off what they have; they want people to know they are successful in life. By doing aggressive things such as speeding, tailgating, and weaving through traffic, they get even more attention to their cars and themselves.

Concept 2: Excellence and Aggressiveness

A. A part of the survey asked people to rate themselves on how good they were at driving. 64% of drivers rate themselves a 9 or 10 in excellence, and 34% believe they are between a 5 and an 8. However, when this is compared to the self-rated aggressiveness, you can see that the “perfect” drivers are also reporting to be aggressive on the road.

B. The relationship between the self-rated excellence and self-rated aggressiveness seem to be part of natural human behavior. We always give ourselves a little slack when rating our own behaviors, and harsher towards others.

C. I see this problem everyday when I ride in a car. If someone “cuts us off” we get mad and feel insulted, but when we do the same action, we make an excuse such as “well I really needed to get in, and no one was letting me go”. Another example of this is when some high school teachers would ask you to write down what grade you think you deserved on a paper or a project. I noticed that many people tended to give themselves a better grade than the teacher ended up giving them. Are the teachers just not seeing how excellent the paper or project was? Perhaps, but I see this happening way too often to believe that that’s the case.

Concept 3: The Zones of Impatience, Hostility, and Road Rage

A. The survey that Dr. James conducted was divided into 3 “zones”, or categories, with each zone being an escalation of aggressive driving behavior. Zone 1 (Zone of Impatience) lists items such as swearing, lane hopping, running a red light, or speeding 5 to 10 miles an hour. Zone 2 (Zone of Hostility) lists items like speeding 15 to 25 miles an hour, yelling or honking at other drivers, or tailgating. Zone 3 (Zone of Road Rage) lists items such as cutting people off, chasing, blocking off, or fighting. For Zone 1, young drivers are the most aggressive, with the young male drivers being slightly more than the females. For Zone 2, young male drivers are much more aggressive than young female drivers. In the middle and senior aged drivers, it is the same way but the numbers are not as high. For Zone 3, in all age categories, the males were more aggressive than the females.

B. In Zone 2 and 3, you can see that the females are less aggressive because these are things that deal with the other driver on a more personal level. Females seem to avoid situations where they get aggressive and hostile with strangers compared to men; you don’t see women pushing each other around or getting into fights as often as men. Like in concept 1, the cultural norms affect the results of this survey.

C. I didn’t think it was aggressive driving to speed 5 miles an hour, or to swear at the other driver as long as your windows are up and they can’t see your mouth movements. The main reason why I don’t do too much of the things in Zones 2 and 3 is just in case the other person is crazy or gets really mad and decides to come after me. Even if I feel someone put my life in danger, I wouldn’t go chase them down or get out of my car and fight them. However, I could see many of my guy friends doing this. I also think this is not only a cultural norm, but also because of my strength and size. If I was bigger and stronger and knew I could defend myself, there would be a higher possibility of me doing these aggressive things in Zones 2 and 3.

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409af2005/takebayashi/home.htm

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/classhome-g23.htm

http://roadragers.com/test/age.htm

Drivers over 65 had the most aggressiveness, and drivers between 18 and 24 had the most road rage.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/insure/basics/8135.asp

National average of 2 deaths per 10,000 registered cars. Most dangerous cars to drive are corvette, mustang, firebird, and camaro. Corvette drivers’ death rates are 2.5 times the average

http://health.yahoo.com/centers/work_life/383

Women are becoming more aggressive on the road—perhaps because they are moving up in the work force. Boost in their self-perception and identity and are less tolerant of other people.