Report 2:
My Understanding of
Driving Psychology
By Yu Takebayashi
Instructions for this report are at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonpsy23/409a-g23-report2.htm
I am answering Questions 2,3,4,5,
and 7.
My Report on the Previous
Generation:
Malia Tarayao—g22
In Malia’s Report 2, she
discusses the three behavioral domains and level of a driver. The three behavioral domains are the
affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor, and the
levels are proficiency (1), safety (2), and responsibility (3). She also plans out a driving personality
makeover for herself in the same question.
She then compares two driving websites, and makes comparisons between
them. The next part of her paper is a
summarization and discussion of 6 student reports from previous
generations. She replaces information in
a table with her own experiences in the next question, and what she could do to
improve her driving skills. The last
section of her paper was doing exercises from the book and reflecting on her
results.
Jordyn Shark—g22
This person did pretty much the same questions as the
previous person, but it seemed like the “my report on the previous generation”
was less formal. This made it more
interesting to read in my opinion. Like
the first one, Jordyn’s tables were neat and organized,
and it was nice how the students’ names were linked to their reports.It also made it more interesting to read because of
the descriptive words Jordyn used when writing his
opinions/statements. Humor is also
incorporated into the paper, which again makes the paper more amusing. (i.e. “The explanations expressed in each report required patience, diplomacy, ample amounts
of time and plenty of food and water. “)
Chris
Nerona—g22
Chris’ paper was interesting to read from the start because
if I remember correctly, he was in my elementary school class. His paragraphs seemed longer than the first
two I had read, and although it seems like he forgot a few links at the end,
the paper overall was very informative.
One thing I really liked was how he used a two-toned table; it looked
more professional and easier to read.Format wise, I
liked how he used the underlines and bold to accentuate important concepts or
words. I also liked how he didn’t just
write “Driving Personality Makeover:” but instead wrote “It’s time for a
MAKEOVER, a driving makeover that is.”
Having little fun phrases like that makes it a whole lot more
interesting for the reader.
The Question I am answering is
Question 2:
(a) Give a
brief review of our two textbooks: Road
Rage and Aggressive Driving (James and Nahl), and
Driving Lessons: Exploring Systems That
Make Traffic Safer (Peter Rothe, Editor). The reviews should be between 3 and 6
paragraphs for each text. (b) Select one
Chapter from each text and give a summary of it. (c) Discuss in what way will
these ideas contribute to solving society’s driving problems. (d) Any other comments you wish to make.
A.
The
two books we read this semester were Road Rage and Aggressive Driving
(James and Nahl), and Driving Lessons: Exploring
Systems That Make Traffic Safer (Peter Rothe,
Editor). These books were both about
training ourselves to be better drivers, road rage, and things that could be
done to deal with the aggression in us.
Both of these books seem to be generally similar in content, but I found
them to be quite different after reading them.
The
first book, Road Rage and Aggressive
Driving (RR), by Dr. James and Dr. Nahl, seemed a
lot more easy to read and relatable.
RR’s main focus was on driving psychology and that our personalities as
drivers affect the way we drive and act on the road. There were some personal examples from Dr.
James and Dr. Nahl, as well as many short examples to
illustrate the concepts being talked about.
To me that was extremely helpful because instead of just stating an
idea, it would state it, explain it, then apply it
through an example.
Another thing I really liked about this book was the
checklists and exercises at the end of some chapters. I believe that activities like this that make
you actually DO something, are really helpful to keep the reader’s
attention. You are reading a book full
of information and it could be repetitive and boring…but wait!! A checklist? Hey this is something different, let’s check
it out. Having short things that let you
take a break from scanning the lines with your tired eyes, yet still keeping
the focus on the same subject is a VERY successful way to maintain the reader’s
focus in my opinion.
Lastly what I thought was really helpful in RR was that
the sources used for each chapter was listed after it, instead of at the end of
the book like most books. This made me
skim through the sources that were compiled for the chapter, and if I wanted
more information I could go there.
Having a sources page in the back of the book would make it more
organized, perhaps, but most of the time people stop reading the book once they
finish the reading and do not go on to read the sources that were used. An added bonus that I’d give the book is the
creative way of displaying the chapter numbers…it totally fits into the subject
matter and very creative!
The second book, Driving
Lessons: Exploring Systems That Make Traffic Safer (DL), edited by Peter Rothe, didn’t get me as interested as the RR book. It seemed like more of a manual compared to
RR, and it was really formal and not as fun.
There aren’t as many charts, tables, or lists as RR which makes it a
little hard on the eyes because it’s mostly reading text (and even when there
are charts, they are confusing to understand).
There are some diagrams of how an accident happened on the road, which
look like something the police use when trying to map out a collision.
DL does a very good job at describing key points and concepts
in a very
detailed manner. For the most part they
also have good examples illustrating the introduced concepts, and it helps the
reader to relate to what is going on, like RR does. DL also seems to be more technical with more
examples that have to do with statistics and numbers, so unless you have taken
a statistics course or are really mature in how you think, it could be a
slightly challenging book to understand.
Some of the examples in this book are very specific real life examples
in which you must understand every little detail, and unless you have a general
understanding of driving psychology before reading this book, it could be a bit
confusing.
Unlike RR, DL has the sources in the back of the book in
alphabetical order. This could be good
when you’re searching for a specific thing, but you wouldn’t know immediately
which chapter the source was used in. I
personally prefer the way RR did it. The
way that DL is written (many different authors contributing for one book) could
be good in a way that you get the views and knowledge of numerous authors, but
it could also be bad that the ideas won’t be as consistent as in RR.
B.
Road Rage
Chapter 6 of Road Rage
is overall about the three-step driver self-improvement program. As the beginning of the chapter states,
“driving is not solely how someone operates a vehicle; it is also a mental
state, a readiness to interpret the acts of others in a hostile way and a
desire to respond in kind.” Dr. James
and Dr. Nahl developed a three-step program to help
drivers work on their “emotional fitness” when on the road.
The three steps are 1) acknowledge,
2) witness, and 3) modify. Acknowledge
means that you have to realize that yourself and other
drivers on the road need “traffic emotions education.” Witness is that you should be watching
how you act, feel, and think when you are driving to find out what type or
level of aggressive driving or road rage you have. Modifying this is the last step, in
which you modify these problems you found out while witnessing. You can only move onto the next step after
completing the current step to be successful in this program.
Acknowledge
This
step is the hardest of the three steps because aggressive driving has seem to become the norm sometimes and also because we don’t
want to admit to ourselves that what we are doing is wrong. We feel insulted when someone is trying to
help us out by telling us that maybe we should take a turn slower, or wave
thank you after someone lets you into their lane.
Witness
There
are different levels of how you can monitor yourself when on the road. There are things that can be measured by
instruments or other people, such as vehicle speed, blood alcohol level, and
making threatening gestures. There are
also smaller things we do that can be measured with sensing equipment, such as
how hard we grip the steering wheel, our heart rate, and the amount of pressure
applied to the brake pedal. You can also
witness negative and positive events.
Negative events are ones like feeling insecurity behind the wheel, and
stressing over police. Positives events
are being ready to return a favor or kindness, or feeling responsible for
everyone’s safety for example.
Modify
This
is the last part in which you try to modify the things you witnessed in the
previous step. This is the easiest if it
is taken one part as a time instead of trying to change everything at
once. For example, if you feel stressed
when driving to work and getting there on time, you could work on leaving just
a little bit earlier. You could also
control your emotions when they get negative or hostile.
Driving Lessons
Chapter 5 of DL is titled “Family and Friends: How Intimate Social Life Contributes to Risky
Driving”, and I already feel like I can relate to this chapter. This chapter is about how our driving is
affected in a bad way by our intimate social life. Intimate social life “is the cradle of society”, and this comes out a lot when we are on the road.
There are two types of social forms, formal and
intimate. Formal social forms as things
such as paying attention to the road and environment, signaling when switching
lanes, and generally making sure you obey the laws. Intimate social forms are like when you talk
and giggle with your friends, or go “cruising.”
These two social forms are supposed to (or at least recommended to) be
separately occurring, yet in many cases they occur together. This makes the situation really dangerous
because laughing with your friends will definitely take some focus off of the
formal social forms. I’m sure most of
the time people know that it’s risky to mix these two social forms, yet just
give in because their status or having fun seems more important at the time.
There was also a survey conducted in this chapter with
about 300 subjects who were randomly selected by telephone numbers in
C.
I think that both of the books had very good ideas for
helping drivers work on their aggression on the road. I definitely think the three-step program
would work if we all learned how to correctly apply it to our daily lives, and
if we truly acknowledged the fact that we need to work on our driving. The checklists also help us to think back at
times when we were driving and we did these things. Since these are books on driving psychology,
it doesn’t just tell you “don’t drink and drive because it’s bad!” or “don’t
swear at other drivers”, it actually goes deeper and
explains why we do these things and how we can work on them. I think this is the most important thing
because people will not just read this and say “oh okay I’ll change” unless
they feel they have a good reason to.
Another thing I think will really work is that there are
so many examples in these books. You
hear about collisions or road rage on the news pretty often, but if you haven’t
been involved in one, you think “well this is just for those aggressive people
who can’t drive well.” This is incorrect
because all of us have been a part of aggressive driving, even if we were
talking on the cell phone or having hostile thoughts about other drivers. When you read all of the examples, you see
that this is a problem that exists everywhere
and it could be the really drastic kind in the news, or even the not so bad
ones that still happen. Reading so many
examples of road rage and aggressive driving made me think of the things that I
do when I drive; the things I thought were okay to do and weren’t aggressive.
D.
No additional comments.
The Question I am answering is
Question 3:
(a) Discuss
these two Web sites: drivers.com vs. drdriving.org by first describing their
overall appearance and purpose. (b) What
are their main differences? Be sure to
consider at least these areas: (i) content of
articles (ii) content and tone of newsletters, when present (iii) style of the
site (iv) probable audience (v) public relations or policy, etc. (vi) advertising
(if any) (vii) size (numbers of files or links) (viii) ranking (see Google or Alexa) (ix) other sites that link to each. (c) Any other comments you wish to make.
A.
When
I first went to drivers.com I thought it
was a mistake. It looked exactly like
those “Reserve this domain name now!” type of sites and some of the material on
there wasn’t even relevant to driving.
On the left side, it said “Computer Drivers”, and although they are
drivers as well, it is definitely not what we are looking for. Even the links for the actual automobile type
driving were strange and didn’t seem very informative; some of them were about
flashing LED lights for your dashboard and how to get a job as a truck
driver. drdriving.org
seemed a lot more informative as soon as I saw that there was a table of
contents type of thing and an introduction about how aggressive driving is a
big problem that we just might be realizing.
It was also more credible because Dr. James had put his contact
information for people who wanted to ask questions or get in touch with him,
and also had links to his books and clips of his video.
B.
The main differences that I found were that drivers.com was more of a collection of
random articles and ads about drivers, and drdriving.org
was an informative site about aggressive driving and road rage.
(i)
The articles in drivers.com were about “Organic LEDs light up dashboards” or “Truck Drivers Needed
Now!” It seemed hardly relevant to our
course and they were more of an advertisement than an information site. On the otherhand, drdriving.org has many links about different topics within driving psychology, and
each link goes to a long article with diagrams and statistical data.
(ii)
I didn’t find a
“newsletter” link on either website, but it was pretty evident that at drdriving.org, there was a lot of
information to help the readers. drivers.com said
they have the “latest driving articles”, meaning it must switch often so you
wouldn’t need a newsletter.
(iii)
The style of drivers.com seems to be just a collection of
random links found on a search engine when you type “drivers”. The style of drdriving.org is for people looking to
become more knowledgeable in the domain of driving psychology and has a lot of
information-filled articles.
(iv)
The audience for
drdriving.org would be Dr. James’
students, parents, teachers, interviewers, and anyone who wants to find out
more information about the problem of road rage and aggressive driving. drivers.com seems like the audience would be people who
accidentally went there thinking it was an informative site because of the URL
name.
(v)
At drivers.com, they said “We specialize in
driving, driver behavior, and traffic safety. Our web site at Drivers.com is an
information resource for both traffic safety professionals and the general
public, with a wealth of information on driver training, education, and
licensing.” At drdriving.org, I found “We have written books and articles on driving psychology
and have posted them on this site for your interest. We also post survey
results and collections of road rage news and legislation. It's all free for
your personal use. For other uses, please email
us for permission.”
(vi)
I
found many links for truck driver jobs at drivers.com on the side, most likely from a
search engine. At drdriving.org, I only found advertisements
for Dr. James and Dr. Nahl’s book and video, which I
found to be a lot better than having random links.
(vii)
drdriving.org has
A LOT of information and links in it, and each topic has so many pages of
data. The main page was pretty large
itself, full of many links and topics, and even a short checklist. drivers.com was a lot smaller in my opinion, with not as
much (relevant) links.
(viii)
I seemed to get
a lot more pages when I did a Google search on drdriving
than when I did it on drivers.com.
(ix)
Many sites
linked to drdriving.org including other
articles about road rage, publishers, and organizations. I couldn’t find many sites linked to
drivers.com, but it was hard to do a search due to the word “drivers” since it
comes up not only as a site name but as a word in thousands of search results.
C.
drivers.com was
also a little confusing to navigate because of how the page is laid out. You click on the link and it takes you to
this page with only a few links. I
learned that to get to the actual page, you have to click on the link that says
“Auto Drivers” which may not be so obvious to everyone.
The Question I am answering is
Question 4:
(a) Select
three of the following student reports from Generation 15. (b) Summarize each of the three reports. Be sure you put a link to the report you are
referring to. (c) Add a General
Conclusion Section in which you discuss your reactions to what they did—(i) their ideas, (ii) their method, (iii) their
explanations. (d) What did they gain
from doing their reports? (e) How did
their ideas influence what you yourself think about these issues? (e) Any other comments you wish to make.
A & B.
“Customizing My Emotional Spin Cycle: Data Analysis”
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409af2001/ahsing/report2.htm
Jennifer’s Report 2 was about the concept of the
“emotional spin cycle”, which is a “system of twelve settings that determine
our thoughts, feelings, and actions dependent upon our emotions and the
circumstance or situations.” Also
discussed are other concepts such as the three-fold self and the Hierarchy of
Motives. She discusses the role of the
emotional spin cycle in society, and what she expects to happen in the future.
Half of the paper is based on her data collection and
analysis of her own feelings, thoughts, and actions for a period of 2
weeks. The first week would be a
baseline sample of general rage and aggressive feelings. The second would be a modification/control
sample of general analyzed feelings as observed from week one. She briefly discusses the three-fold self
(AWM) and what the design of the study would be. She then explains the way she will be rating
herself and collecting data for the two weeks.
She then analyzes the data and comes to a conclusion that there is
indeed an emotional spin cycle and it is hard to change your behaviors.
“Customizing My Emotional Spin Cycle: Data Analysis”
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bf2001/shellgirl/report2.htm
Shell87’s
Report 2 was about the same “emotional spin cycle”, and described the same
things that Jennifer did (above). She
didn’t go on to explain these terms and concepts as far as Jennifer did, but
the necessary things were. She reported
and analyzed her data and came to a conclusion for week one that she is usually
in the positive zones for self and others in the morning hours. As the day went on, it headed toward the
negative zones and stayed there. Also,
she was more in the negative zones when she was tired, and also became more
irritable and bored.
She
tried to monitor and bridge her three-fold-self in week two based on the first
week’s data. She felt she successfully
did this, and she was more positive in the afternoon/night at work/school when
she used to be a lot more negative. Shell87
felt that although this was helpful, it was a bit hard and sometimes felt that
she was only altering her three-fold-self for this project.
“Customizing My Emotional Spin Cycle: Data Analysis”
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bf2001/reaves/report2.html
So
by now I have realized that every single Report 2 must be about the same
topic. Nicole’s report, like the
previous two, described the basic concepts but she did so with image files of
the charts. She had examples of data
that she took for week one, and unlike the first two students, hers was more
detailed in a paragraph form. She
realized that she would constantly have a high negative level in the afternoons
from Monday through Friday, and that it was associated with her son not doing
homework.
In
week two, she used the red bridge to move her negative feelings/thoughts to the
positive side. She was quite surprised
at the results, and her son actually did better and listened more when she
asked him things calmly instead of yelling.
By changing her negative attitudes into positive ones, her overall
stress level went down as well and she felt much better about herself.
C. General
Conclusion
Jennifer
(i)
I agree with her
ideas about the future concerning the emotional spin cycle; it does seem pretty
grim. I strongly agree that your
attitudes and behaviors are hard to change, especially when you are in those
moments when you are angry and not thinking too much about being “better”.
(ii)
Her method of
stopping and thinking about why she was feeling/acting in negative ways worked,
but it was a conscious effort. I doubt
any of us, or a very few, can do this without making a conscious effort so I
think it was still a good method.
(iii)
Jennifer says
that by doing this paper she has “gained a greater awareness of how to handle
and cope with different situations, people, and emotions.” All of us have problems with coping with
stressful or bothersome situations, so I feel that maybe we should all have to
do this analysis and see what comes out of it.
Shell87
(i)
I really liked
the way she analyzed herself and found a pattern that she seems to be negative
in the afternoon/night more. I think a
really important part of this analysis is to find a pattern and see what is
causing it.
(ii)
Her method of
changing her negative into positive was by using a bridge. She acknowledged that usually she stays
negative and runs with it, and that it was hard to switch over to the positive
side. I can understand why she felt that
it was successful with a conscious effort, but it would be pretty hard to apply
this to everyday life just because it requires so much effort.
(iii)
Like Jennifer,
Shell87 learned something about herself through this paper. As mentioned in the summary of her paper
above, she felt that she was only changing her negatives into positives because
of the paper and not necessarily because she thought it was better (for
herself). I think to be successful with
this changing of your emotional spin cycle, you would need to genuinely want to
change the negative way you are.
Nicole
(i)
I liked the way
she wrote a short paragraph on her three-fold-self in the observations. It helped the reader, in my opinion, get a
better understanding of what she was feeling/thinking/doing than just a simple
word like “Frustrated.” It helped that
she put details about the things she said to her son; it let the readers know
why she was experiencing these negative thoughts/feelings/actions.
(ii)
Her method of
stopping when she was upset, and talking in a calm manner without showing anger
(although she was pretty angry inside) was really effective in my opinion. If you just yell at your child to do
something, they will either get upset or just not want to do it anymore out of
sheer rebelliousness. By calmly asking
him to “please do your work”, he probably felt that she wasn’t demanding him to
do anything, and just asking nicely for his own good.
(iii)
I really like
how she learned that by changing her negatives into positives, she could
actually change the way her son acts and feels as well. By doing this, she feels her relationship
with her son has grown better, and she also doesn’t have to worry about her son
growing up with an angry parent. In
Nicole’s report I really felt that she actually attempted the changes for her
son and herself, instead of just for the paper.
D.
Jennifer
Jennifer
“gained a greater awareness of how to handle and cope with different
situations, people, and emotions.” I
also think she learned that if you put a little effort into something, you can
change it for the better.
Shell87
Shell87
gained knowledge about herself and the patterns of when she gets upset. I think knowing what kind of situations and
times make you upset is a really valuable thing. By knowing this, she can either avoid these
situations or be more consciously aware during them to keep from acting out her
negative feelings/thoughts/actions.
Nicole
Nicole,
in my opinion, seemed to learn the most out of this report. She learned what kinds of things make her
upset, why they make her upset, and that things are better for her and her son
if she makes an effort to change her attitude.
She probably also learned that this not only applies with her son, but
also in other relationships as well; yelling and being demanding will not
necessarily get the effect you want out of the other person.
E.
Their ideas actually influenced me a lot because I often
experience negativity in everyday life.
I happen to get stressed or bothered by something pretty easily, and
most of the time I just let it stay because I just don’t know what to do with
it. When I’m in these negative moods, I
am easily irritated and not willing to give as much compassion to others. I learned that even if you are upset, if you
learn to “bridge” the negative into positive, the outcome could be a lot
better.
For this to work, I think I would need to control my
mouth and pride. Most of the time when I
am upset, if someone says something to me that I take as offensive, I will just
snap back at them. This, of course, only
makes things worse which actually makes me even more upset in the end. Another issue I have is with pride; if I feel
that something someone said was degrading or saying I was wrong, I seem to get
really upset. I usually just let my
anger get to me and let it out, but I guess I should try changing them into
more positive attitudes and see if that would help.
F.
No additional comments.
The Question I am answering is
Question 5:
(a) Consider Table 5 in the Lecture Notes, in the
Section on Driving Psychology Theory and Charts at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/409-g23-lecture-notes.htm#Charts (b) Consult the article from which the Table
was taken. (c) Copy and paste the table
into your file. Now delete the examples in each cell and replace them with your
own examples that you make up. (d)
Discuss why driving is such a big problem in all societies and why no effective
solutions have yet been found for them.
(e) Discuss the solutions offered by Dr. Leon James (www.DrDriving.org). What likelihood is
there that his approach will be adopted? Explain. (f) Any other comments you
wish to make.
C.
|
Table
5 |
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|
D.
Driving is such a big problem in all societies because of
many reasons. Some of these reasons are
things that are in the driver’s control and some that are not. There are other external factors like movies
and peer pressure that affect the way you drive. No matter the reason, we as drivers should learn
to control our behaviors to lessen this problem we have on the roads.
Some factors that are in our control could be our time,
mood, and pride. Time is obviously
important in our society, hence the phrase “time is money.” This is not only in the
Our mood is constantly affecting the way we drive and how
we view other drivers or events on the road.
I know from personal experience that if I’m in a good mood, I am more
likely to let other people in my lane or be patient with slow drivers. If I am in a bad mood, I get easily irritated
because I feel like other drivers are trying to make my bad day even
worse. You are the only person that can
control or deal with your mood, so learning how to look at things from a more
positive perspective could be helpful.
The third factor that I mention is pride. Our car is an extension of the self; we pay
for it, take care of it, and it’s always with us. When someone does something that invades our
space or we feel is insulting, we get defensive. In our society, our cars can represent who we
are, what kind of job we have, or what our style is. We need to realize that we drivers cannot
control everything that happens, and just because something happens to you it
doesn’t mean someone is trying to insult you personally. It is good to have enough pride to not be
pushed around by everyone in life, but it would help a lot of we didn’t take
the things that happen on the road on a personal level.
Some factors that we cannot control are traffic, other
drivers, and unexpected events. Although
you can figure out a general pattern of when there is traffic and not, this
isn’t a for sure thing everytime. Sometimes there could be more traffic due to
an accident, the weather, or just that there are more cars on the road. We also cannot control what other drivers do,
and we shouldn’t try to. We sometimes
wish we could control them, make them go faster or turn off their signal, but
it’s not up to us and it never will be.
We just need to deal with the fact that there are things we can’t
control and keep our cool about it.
An important uncontrollable factor is the issue of
unexpected events. We as humans like to
rely on a schedule or pattern for the most part. Many of us do routine things everyday; wake
up, brush our teeth, change our clothes, eat breakfast, drive to school,
etc. Usually we do these in the same
order, as we like to have a pattern to keep track of our hectic lives. When something unexpected that you can’t
control happens, you feel like your pattern has been thrown off and get
frustrated. We often like to blame this
on others because we feel like we need to blame it on something, or someone, as
an explanation (to ourselves) why our schedule had to be altered. This only happens when it is an unexpected
event that we cannot control though. For
example, if we unexpectedly decided one day to go shopping for a new outfit, we
wouldn’t feel frustrated because our pattern was thrown off—we’d most likely be
in a better mood.
No effective solutions have been found yet because a lot
of it has to do with our psychological self; the way we feel and think, which leads to actions. People can think of solutions like changing
the speed limit or making a longer merge lane on the freeway but it’s really up
to ourselves to make driving safer. Many of us don’t realize that aggressive
driving is a problem because we don’t quite know what it is. We don’t know that insulting someone under
our breath or following the car in front of us closely to induce them to drive
faster are forms of aggressive driving.
I believe that some people just aren’t educated enough on this topic,
and some just aren’t willing to change due to their selfish reasons.
E.
Dr. Leon James offers a few solutions for us to better
our everyday driving habits. The most
important one in my opinion is the three-step program. The three-step program is where you 1)
acknowledge, 2) witness, then 3) modify.
(The three-step program is described earlier in the report) I think this method would work if everyone
was aware of it. We read this book
because of class, but if I hadn’t taken this class I don’t think I would’ve
ever read it. The problem isn’t only
that I wouldn’t have known about it, but even if I did I would probably think
“road rage? I don’t have that, and it’s
not a big deal.”
To adopt his methods, driver’s education classes would
have to require it. We would all need to
learn this method so we can practice it in our everyday lives; like the saying
goes, “practice makes perfect.” Although
we will never be perfect, I’m sure
we’d all be much better drivers if we adopted some of Dr. James’ methods. Actually we would not only be better drivers,
but probably learn something valuable about our personalities as well. The acknowledge,
witness, modify method would also work in all other aspects of life when we
feel angry or negative.
F.
No additional comments.
The Question I am answering is
Question 7:
(a) Our
textbook Road Rage and Aggressive Driving
has checklist exercises in several chapters. Do the following four exercises: (i) Exercise on How Passenger-Friendly Are You on
p.184-5 (ii) Exercise on Witnessing Your
Aggressive Driving on p.140-3 (iii)
Exercise on Your Road Rage Tendency on p.40-42
(iv) Exercise on Your Verbal Road Rage Tendency on p.91 (b)What were your reactions to each
exercise? (c) Discuss how these
exercises help you to become more aware of yourself as a driver. (d) Do some of the exercises with another
driver you know. How do they help you
understand some principles of driving psychology mentioned in the book? Discuss and illustrate. (e) Any other comments you wish to make.
B.
(i) I am pretty considerate of my passenger’s feelings but I
think it also depends who it is. If it
is someone I know really well I would be more likely to shut down their
comments. If my grandpa were to tell me
to slow down I would immediately listen, but if it was my brother I would tell
him to shut up because he doesn’t know anything. I also have a problem with my brother trying
to listen to his music in my car; I feel I should be able to choose because I’m
the one that’s driving and putting all the hard work into it.
(ii)
By doing this
exercise I realized that I do some things that I don’t really think about when
I’m doing them. I don’t do too many
dangerous things but I do notice myself feeling hostile or thinking bad
thoughts about other drivers when I feel they put me in danger.
(iii)
My results (road
rage score of 5) say that I have moderate road rage habits. I probably agree with this result because I
admit that I do get aggressive (at least in my head) but don’t do many things
to confront the other driver. One of the
questions that I really agreed with is “When drivers do something really
“stupid” that endangers me or my car, I get furious, even aggressive.” I don’t get aggressive, but I get really mad
when I feel they endangered my life because they wanted to force themselves
into the lane or make a left turn faster than I could cross the intersection
(and I have the right of way).
(iv)
I actually
checked off about half of these road rage statements. They are mostly things that I complain about
other people doing, and not the ones where I am the one threatening
someone. (i.e. “I’m tailgating you
now.”) Recently I noticed that I have
also started to discriminate against women because the majority of the time
I’ve been endangered, it had been by a woman.
I know that just because I have had those experiences I shouldn’t be
saying all women are bad, but it’s almost fun to say “oh my god look at that
stupid driver, must be a woman” and be right.
C.
These exercises help me to better as myself as a driver
because most importantly, now I know that these “harmless” (in my mind) acts or
thoughts are actually associated with road rage and aggressive driving. I also realize that although it’s fun to
dwell in your anger and think of all the rotten things that could happen to the
other driver for “ruining your day” (which they really didn’t; it’s your own
fault for taking it that way), it doesn’t get you anywhere and not healthy for
you or anyone else on the road at all.
I also realize that I need to be more considerate of
other passengers’ feelings when I drive.
I realize that I, like many others, take it as an insult when people
tell me something negative about my driving that I should change. We need to know that they are only trying to
help and also expressing that they are nervous/afraid and just want us to alter
it; they are not trying to crush our egos or make us feel bad. A lot of times I think “well if you have a
problem with my driving, get your own ride” but we all know sometimes it can’t
be helped. As a driver, we should learn
how to accommodate to our passengers’ needs and try to give them the most
comfortable ride possible. Just think of
when you ride in a car… do you want the driver doing whatever the hell they
want? Or would you rather have a
comfortable and enjoyable ride? Every
passenger deserves to be treated with respect.
D.
I did some of these exercises with my brother and what I
noticed is that he checked off more of the ones that had to do with status,
pride, or territory. He also has more
thoughts of retaliating when he feels like he has been disrespected by another
motorist. I think this is because men
seem to actually act out their aggressive behavior compared with women. My brother is a pretty big guy, so if he were
to get in a fight with an average size man it would be alright. He could also most likely defend himself
against a woman (unless she had a gun or some crazy weapon.) It seems like the idea of racing someone
after getting their engine revved at is a bigger possibility than with me.
Perhaps this could be because men generally play more
video games (racing, violence, etc.) and watch the more violent, action-packed
movies. I even experienced myself the
“oh wow that is so cool, I wish I could put NOS in my car and speed up a broken
bridge and land safely on the other side,” feeling once in awhile. Movies and video games make it so effortless
and safe (after all you only get a few dents on your car) that we sometimes
forget that if it were to happen in real life, we could get badly injured and
involve other people around us as well.
I also learned in a social psychology class that men have
evolved to be more protective of their property and territory. I think this showed when my brother did the
checklists because he would check things off like “nope I won’t let you sneak
into my lane.” The car is an extension of them, and the
space on the road that they are currently driving on seems to be an extension
of them as well. When someone forces
themselves into that spot in front of them, it’s like parking your car on their
front yard (in their mind). Maybe they
think “nobody disrespects me by taking over my property,” and take action by
driving aggressively or confronting them in an aggressive manner.
E.
No additional comments.
Links:
G23 Class Homepage: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/classhome-g23.htm
My homepage: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409af2005/takebayashi/home.htm