Psychology 409a, November 6, 2005

My Third Outline of Assigned Readings

By Yu Takebayashi

Road Rage is Everywhere

James, Dr. Leon and Nahl, Dr. Diane. “Road Rage and Aggressive Driving: Steering Clear of Highway Warfare.” Prometheus Books: New York. 2000. p15-32.

Instructions for this activity are found at:

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

Instructor: Dr. Leon James

Concept 1: Is road rage real or a media hype?

A. “Road rage” is defined as when one driver acts violently against another. This term was really made popular by the media, through the news, magazines, or tv shows. However the general public does not know exactly what the term means, and use the term on a regular basis, sometimes mistaking it with “aggressive driving.”

B. Although road rage seems to be real, it is also exaggerated by the media. The media uses words that usually describe war when they talk about road rage, aggressive driving, or accidents. It is also commonly used in movies, where a driver gets angry and rams another car, or shoots someone with a gun. There are cases like these in real life, but by putting them in the media so much, it makes it seem like it happens a lot more often and that it is not that frowned upon.

C. I definitely think road rage is real because I can see how angry people get while driving. Although I haven’t experienced any first hand situations with road rage (thank god!), reading the examples in this reading have led me to believe that there is no way it is just a media hype.

Concept 2: Road rage: A Worldwide Phenomenon

A. Since we usually only hear about road rage and aggressive driving in the United States, we are unaware of the road rage that occurs outside of our country. It would seem that in some other countries or areas, road rage isn’t as big a problem because they are not as developed or large.

B. The more congested the roads are, the more road rage there seems to be. If the roads were wide and open, we wouldn’t have problems with someone not letting us in their lane, or an elderly woman driving too slowly. We get frustrated because we are put in a situation we don’t like, then are “forced” to stay in it. We just want to get on with our merry ways, but there is this other driver who is blocking the path to our destination. Road rage definitely happens all over the world, and not just in the U.S.

C. When I go to japan every summer, I go to the Tokyo area. Tokyo is very populated and there are people and cars filling up the streets. Although there hasn’t been any cases of road rage I observed, I can tell that there is a lot of aggressive driving and hostility between some drivers. You can constantly hear people honking and they are always trying to cut each other off. The pedestrians don’t make this easy either. If there is a crosswalk with no light and the driver signals to the pedestrians that they can cross, they will NOT stop. They will just keep coming and coming, with no consideration for the driver who just stopped for them. I think we see this in Waikiki when we see tourists crossing when the red hand is up, meaning you are not supposed to cross.

Concept 3: The Culture of Rage

A. The idea of the “Culture of Rage” is that our entire culture is so used to seeing or experiencing rage that we are partially becoming numb to it. However, taking part in activities where people get violent like that are very dangerous.

B. An example the reading talked about was wrestling on TV. I never understood why it was so interesting to watch two people beat eachother up, but the guys seemed so into it. Many of these people are role models to children or teenagers, and they think these wrestlers are “cool.” This is also seen in video games where the most common idea of the game is to hurt/kill/destroy someone (whether it may be the bad guy, or just some other person). Even in a seemingly innocent game like Super Mario, you jump on things to kill them, or shoot them with fireballs… to kill them.

C. I play a video game where we are allowed to kill other players’ characters if they are on the opposing side (the two sides are supposedly in a war.) I thought it would be boring at first, but after awhile I realized that it was more psychologically stimulating than I thought it would be. You can kill someone, they can come back to life, and you can kill them again. If you have nothing better to do you can continue this for an hour or more, while they are sitting on the other side being frustrated that they can’t get away. But for the killing side, it is just so much fun to know that the other person is angry and you keep killing them. Games like these make it seem okay to cause someone grief and laugh about it.

My Homepage:

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

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

Related Weblinks:

http://www.canstats.org/readdetail.asp?id=548 road rage is made up by media

http://www.drdriving.org/articles/testimony.htm road rage is everywhere

http://www.rbc.org/ds/q0716/page2.html america has become a “society of rage”