409a-g25-report2 Fall 2006 Dr

Report 2
My Report on Driving Psychology
By your name

Instructions for this report are at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/409a-g25-report2.htm
I am answering Questions 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7.

Dr. Leon James, Instructor
University of Hawaii
December 2006

The Question I am answering is Question 1

(a) Contrast our two textbooks: Road Rage and Aggressive Driving (James and Nahl), and Driving Lessons: Exploring Systems That Make Traffic Safer (Peter Rothe, Editor). Name some ways they are similar, and some ways they are different. Would either text be suitable for high school students?

(b) Discuss in what way these ideas can help solve society's driving problems. Be specific: describe the main problems (use some statistics) and how can particular ideas in these two books help solve those problems.

(c) Describe the reactions of friends when you tell them about driving personality makeovers and its psychological and social context.

These two books, Rage and Aggressive Driving (James and Nahl), and Driving Lessons: Exploring Systems That Make Traffic Safer (Peter Rothe, Editor), have a similar overall theme, the safety of drivers. There are many other similarities such as Dr. James has written a chapter for Mr. Rothe’s book, both books explore the psychological makeup of drivers and both are trying to provide definitions and solutions that will provoke more discussion on the topic Where they differ is in each authors approach to discover a taxonomy of driving. Dr. James’ approach is almost exclusively that of psychology, defining people’s thoughts, feelings and actions and providing a detailed map of what is currently termed “road rage”. Mr. Rothe’s book is an amalgamation of many articles from all walks of scientific background, geography, highway safety, psychology, sociology, design, medicine, victims groups, education, and research. Rather than spotlighting one part of driver’s safety, he chose to focus on the overall safety of drivers.

Mr. Rothe divides his book into tree sections, the first is personal sub-systems. This revolves around the individual driver, his physical health, his mental health and his social health. All aspects of this section are interested in dissecting the driver and his behaviors. The idea is that by breaking down the components of driving behavior, intervention becomes possible. Many ideas are postulated in this section, such as using neuroscience to detect inattention and engineering to create a warning system for when inattention is detected. Dr. James’ article is in this section, he takes the reader through the basic principles of driving psychology which are:

1. Driving is a complex of behaviors acting together as cultural norms.

2. Driving norms exist in three domains: affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor.

3. Driving norms are transmitted by parents, other adults, magazines, movies, TV.

The second section is the institutional sub-system. This includes all the bureaucracy that is involved with road and driver safety, it is comprised of the economic system, the legal system, the media, and the educational system. All these government services are charged with the welfare of the “common good”, but the “common good” is a hotly contested notion when it comes to the roads. There is a question of how much control is needed to protect drivers and where do we draw the line between protection and freedom. One of the highlights of this section is an article about the court system using volunteer organizations such as M.A.D.D. to rehabilitate offending drivers. The success of these kinds of programs is undeniable and heartening for drivers who wish stay alive on the roads.

At the foundation of all driving is the technical sub-system, roads are engineered not only for route but safety as well. The traffic lights are timed to allow the best flow of traffic. The use of cell phones has become a highly controversial use of technology in a vehicle. It has, without a doubt, saved many lives but it has also become a leading cause of accidents due to inattention. The police have benefited from the advance in technology, they have been relying on radar detector to catch speeders and know are being relieve of this time consuming burden by automatic speed detectors. We cannot forget the vehicles themselves, they have advanced in their safety and handling with the additions like airbags and antilock brakes. There is a worry that they are going to far on the technology bandwagon by adding things like DVD players and internet connections.

Dr. James divides his book into three sections as well. The first section focuses on the conflict mentality which is the tendency of people to seek and engage in conflict with other drivers. Dr. James explores “the age of rage” and aggressive driving, including his own, which was the impetus for this book. This section is full of descriptions of hostility on the road and check lists that provide the reader with the opportunity to measure their own aggressive driving attitudes.

The second section is a break down of the psychology of driving. Dr. James teaches the reader to discover their inner power tools by understanding the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor skills that they possess and how those skills are learned and passed down through the generations. He shows the reader how to identify the positive and negative driver qualities in themselves and provides a three-step self-improvement programs that the readers can use to become more supportive drivers.

His last section is an introspective look at the future of driving, what the costs of aggressive drivers may exact from the society and what organizations like the police are trying to do reduce those effects in the future. He identifies what he terms “the great motorist rebellion”, a tendency for all drivers to break the law every time they get in the car. Maybe they go two miles over the speed limit or do not signal every time they change a lane, but everyone breaks the law while they drive. Studies are showing that some of our rules of the road may be causing more problems than they are helping, like speed limits. The flow of traffic may be a safer indicator of speed than an arbitrary number.

Mr. Rothe’s book poses many ideas for improving driver safety; some of them sound like they are taken from a science fiction novel, but all of them are within the realm of possibility today. One of the most intriguing and hard to understand is how neuropsychological examinations might weed out the dangerous drivers. It is reported that the death rates for elderly drivers are significantly higher than other age groups. If there were an examination that could identify the debilitating byproducts of aging, unsafe elderly drivers could be removed from the road and leave the ones whose driving skills are intact.

The author does not limit his concerns for road safety to just the humans on the road, he presents an article that provides us with solutions to animals on the road, commonly referred to as “road kill”. Although “road kill” is often grist for the humor mill, animal deaths on the road is a serious issue. Many accidents are cause by motorists avoiding an animal that has walked into the path of a vehicle and in some areas traffic is decimating the wildlife population. In the Netherlands 20 percent of the badger population was killed annually, after fences and tunnels were installed the badger population doubled. I wish they had mentioned if the accident rate went down for that stretch of road.

Another idea involves integrating technology with common since to produce a system that would allow highway safety engineers to find problems and fix them. The author of this article says that the Alberta Think and Drive program determined that most accidents occurred between 4 p.m. and 7p.m. and the Black Spot campaign of the City of Calgary determined where the most likely places for accidents to occur. He feels this information could be combined to form a predictive model of accidents and armed with this knowledge, interventions could be implemented.

Dr. James has a plethora of ideas to improve driver safety and they all surround the thought that change can only come from within. People will resist change until they are convinced that there is a need. The need is fast approaching with statistics like, “aggressive drivers kill two to four times more people than drunk drivers” or that “acts of aggression have replace carelessness as the main source of the danger”.

One of the major proposals for change is the Three-Step Driver Self-Improvement Program. The first step is to acknowledge that every driver needs to be educated about the emotions of driving. These emotions are form from infancy and affected by what is happening at the moment. A driver must be able to admit the bad habits that developed over a lifetime and often are sustained unconsciously in order to move to the next two steps.

After admitting that you may have some bad habits it is time to discover what they are. Witnessing your own drive will point out were the deficiencies are and if you are unable to see them for yourself, just ask a friend or family member they will be happy to point out your flaws. It is often helpful to carry a tape recorder in the car to capture the immediate emotions and actions. Dr. James provides a list of things to be on the look out for.

The last step, as always, is to modify your behavior. This may well be the most difficult part of the program, change is never easy and these habits are well ingrained to the driver personality. There will be resistance to change in the beginning of the process, but as you train your emotions you will find that driving can be a pleasant experience. Dr. James suggests that breaking the tasks into smaller tasks may be beneficial and that keeping a driver’s diary can help from being overwhelmed.

(c) Describe the reactions of friends when you tell them about driving personality makeovers and its psychological and social context.

My friends are a little older than most of the students in this class and they have left their inexperienced and impulsive driving back in the 1980’s and 1990’s. While most of them are very competent (competent is defined by them as; they have learned that tickets and accidents cost and make every effort to avoid both) drivers, they do have some very ingrained bad habits. Most of them are well aware of their individual bad habits and make accommodation for them instead of changing them.

One friend is chronically late to everything, she say that she is going to be late for her own funeral. She knows that she drives more erratically when she is trying to make up time, but she points to her good driving record as evidence of staying in the bounds of safety. When I asked her if she got angry at drivers that got in her way and yelled at them, she said that she did do that quite often even with her kids in the car, but did not see the harm. I explained that her children were learning to be drivers by her example, just like they pick up accents and habits of their parents. This was a new thought for her and she said that she would probably think twice before she expresses her anger while her kids are in the car.

The Question I am answering is Question 2

(a) Search Google News section, for "road rage." Describe what you see. Is it a general phenomenon? How do you react?

(b) How do you explain what's going on -- using driving psychology theory. Connect what you found in the news with the problems and solutions you discuss in Question 1.

(a) Search Google News section, for "road rage." Describe what you see. Is it a general phenomenon? How do you react?

Road rage is a minor hot topic in the news these days. When I searched Google News using the “road rage” I found around 1860 news stories on the subject. To give that number a little context I googled some news stories that I knew were in the news recently. Tom Cruise got married this week and there were almost 10,000 stories about him and Nancy Pelosi was named speaker of the House this week an there were 16,000 stories about her. These examples may not be a fair comparison because social problems have never garnered the media attention that stars and politicians receive. In the name of fairness I search some topical social issues. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder only returned 371 results and ADHD returned 778 news stories. So in the world of social problems, “road rage” is a rock star.

I looked through several pages of stories and found that the majority of articles had to do with the punishment of road rage offenders. It seems that the judicial system is struggling with determining the severity of the sentences. They want to apply very harsh punishments on those that cause damage and harm because of their bad driving behavior, but juries are sometimes reluctant to impose the most severe sentences. I believe this is due to the fact that many people on the jury are aggressive drivers and feel the victim bear some of the responsibility.

In the most horrific example of this, found at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06323/739609-53.stm Road rage a willful homicide or horrific accident? By Gabrielle Banks, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, are two young women who were in a long standing feud over their drug dealing jailed boyfriend and concluded their dispute by engaging in a high speed car chase. The exchange was sparked by one seeing the other at a stop light. It included high speeds, sideswipes and bumping fenders and ended when one of the women was sideswiped and her car was launched into oncoming traffic. Not only did these two women kill the driver of the oncoming car, the one whose car was launched had her three children in the car without restraint and she was high on marijuana. She killed herself and her two of her children as well as the innocent driver.

The only one left to take the blame is the woman who bumped the car into on coming traffic. The District Attorney filed first degree murder charges against the woman but is having a difficult time convincing the jury that the other woman’s contribution to deaths (including her own) should not free this woman from her responsibility for her part in the incident. He has had to instruct the jury that they may consider third degree murder, a much lighter sentence. This sentence still requires him to prove malice on the part of the accused which is where this story gets a little sticky. The defense is claiming that although there has been this longstanding feud between the two women that require police interventions and restraining orders from both women, that the defendant was on that day being chase and harassed by a doped up crazy woman that would have killed her had she stopped. They go on to point out that bumping the other woman’s car was self defense and committed in fear for her life.

So what is a jury to do? The situation is gross and incredible but both explanations a plausible. How do they decide which story is right? If there was a law against aggressive driving, even in the defense of one’s life, this trial who probably never come to trial? Criminalizing aggressive driving would alleviate the courts from trying to prove a feeling and focus on only the behavior of drivers, which is much easier to discern through science.

In another article found at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/features/4341165.html. The turn that sparked a case of road rage By Leon Hale of the Houston Chronicle, Mr. Hale editorializes about an incident that happened to him while driving. He admits that the first mistake was his that he swung to wide on a turn and causing the oncoming driver to have to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting him. What surprised him was how angry the other motorist became. There were horn honking, finger gestures and nasty words aimed in his direction.

Mr. Hale recounts us with what is reaction would have been in his youth and it would have been a tit-for-tat scenario. He explained that in his old age he had mellowed and felt that his calmer attitude accounted for his still being alive but he still made the argument that the other guy was speeding. In a small twist of fate, Mr. Hale ended up behind the same angry driver a short while latter. He wondered if the man was still angry and if he would escalate the situation. He decided to plan out what he would do if the man confronted him in the middle of the street. Would he role down his window and try to calmly reason with the angry driver or would he roll up his window and try to avoid the situation? As it turned out, Mr. Hale did not have to do either of his choices. The driver either did not recognize him or had calm down and remained in his vehicle.

(b) How do you explain what's going on -- using driving psychology theory. Connect what you found in the news with the problems and solutions you discuss in Question 1.

From what I have learned in this class the first example is a case of “road rage”. At first I was reluctant to call this behavior “road rage” because of the longstanding feud. I thought that this might be a case of premeditated aggression that just happened to involve cars as the weapons used. After reading the article several times I came to the conclusion that this was a case of “road rage” even though the participants had a history. The reason that I classify this as “road rage” is because it was sparked by one of the woman seeing the other on the road. This is no different than the driver that is cut off by another driver and becomes instantly angry and peruses the offender. According to the article the two women were not out on the road looking for each other, they saw each other and the history sparked the “road rage” just as in stranger “road rage”.

The trigger theory of “road rage” explains how these women could explode into a homicidal rage at the sight of each other, especially the woman that had her children in the car. Her rage had to be so great that it over road the biological imperative to protect her children. She allowed her anger at the other woman to lead her into a situation that was ultimately deadly for her and two of her three children. She probably justified in her head by saying “just a little bump, she deserves if for all that she has done to me” Her justification encouraged her anger and depressed the urge to protect her children.

I am convinced that if one or both of these women had learned about driver psychology, they would have made the choice to deflate the situation before it became deadly. Even if the trigger occurred and the two women saw each other on the road they would have remembered the supportive driving techniques and realized the possible deadly outcomes before embarking on a reckless indulgence of emotions.

(c) Tell your friends about what you found. Describe their reaction.

After I told my friends the story of the two women that resulted in the death of two adults and two children, every one of them expressed appalled disbelief. In trying to understand how a mother could put her children in harms way, they came up with a range of issues.

1. The drugs made her careless

2. She must have had a mental disorder

3. She must not have cared about her kids

While all of these ideas may be true, not one person I told suggested that “road rage” was the cause. Most of my friends are aware that I am in this class because I have queried them so often for other assignments, but without the training that I have received they still do not see “road rage” as the basic problem. This tells me that just putting out information on “road rage” will not change attitudes.

The Question I am answering is Question 3

(a) Select some student reports at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s2003/newsgroups Discuss your reactions to what they did – their ideas, their method, and their explanations. What did they gain from doing their reports? How do their ideas influence what you yourself think about these issues?

(b) Now go to Google Groups search and type in "driving". See if you can corroborate the conclusions of the student reports which were done several years ago. Is this still going on the same way?

It took me reading about ten of the Newsgroups to understand what these reports were about. After this breakthrough, my next thought was, “this class had it very easy”. Most of the newsgroups were incomprehensible and I could not discern what the main topic of these reports was. I resorted to reading the instructions to see if these reports were following the directions. The first report found at: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s2003/newsgroups/newgroups71.html gives us no idea of what the author is trying to convey. The title is Attitudes Driving Newsgroups: On Road Rage, so I would expect the author to explain how the newsgroup comments relate to the taxonomy of “road rage” that was presented in class. Instead, the comments were editorial in nature and often at complete odds with theories of “road rage”.

One comment posted on the newsgroup and used in this report tells the story of a man’s change of driving behavior from driving aggressively to being aware of the problem and trying to change. The author’s comments focus on the man’s prior attitude, stating “Who die and made this person god of the roadways”. He fails to highlight the impetus for the change and the example of the Acknowledge, Witness, and Modify method.

In another report found at: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s2003/newsgroups/newsgroup72.html one of the post describes a person driving behind a left lane bandit in the rain. He is angry and is forced to pass the driver on the right only to discover that the driver does not have the required lights on. The author seems find fault with person that wrote the post, erroneously assuming that because he does not know about the law that requires drivers to turn on their lights in bad weather that there is no law. The author also feels that all drivers should drive their “comfort level” in what ever lane that they want. As discussed in this class this is a form of passive aggressive driving.

(b) Now go to Google Groups search and type in "driving". See if you can corroborate the conclusions of the student reports which were done several years ago. Is this still going on the same way?

I could not corroborate the conclusions of the Newsgroup reports with a Google search of “driving” for two reasons. The first is that the Google search returned mostly advertisements, maps, and car dealerships, a site or story about driving issues did not show up until the third page of matches and that site was DrDriving.org. The second reason is that the authors of the reports that I read rarely made conclusions and when they did they were contrary to what we have learned in this class.

The Question I am answering is Question 4

(a) Consider Table 4 in the Lecture Notes at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/409a-g25-lecture-notes.htm#Charts Read the Section titled "The AWM Approach in Driver Self-Modification" where Table 4 is located. In your own words summarize what it is about.

(b) Now select the norms that characterize your threefold self as a driver, passenger, or pedestrian.

(c) Try the AWM procedure on at least two trips or episodes. What is your conclusion? How can this approach be promoted in our society?

The AWM Approach in Driver Self-Modification is a three-step program for changing the bad driving habits that are acquired over a lifetime. This program works with the three-fold self, a psychological model that illustrates how behavior is learned. The three-fold self consists of affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor domains. The affective domain is where our feelings are stored, but even more than feelings; it is where beliefs about our selves and the world around us are located. A negative affect would be a belief ownership of the road and the positive would be that we all share the road.

The cognitive domain is where our skills are developed and expanded. The skills of a driver most likely start forming as soon as we take our first car ride. We develop our technique of driving from observing our parents drive and other early driving experiences. An important part of the cognitive domain is risk assessment. The capacity to decide what is dangerous to us and to others starts slowly and is improved with experience. The teen driver often fails to evaluate properly the dangers of driving aggressively but by the time they reach their mid-twenties this skill is much improved.

The sensorimotor domain gains the most attention. Driver’s education is almost wholly devoted to the procedures of driving. There is a ton of research on reactions and attention. It tells us what distracts us and what makes us loose our attention when we are driving. Engineers design cars and roads with the intent to maximize a driver’s attention and reaction times.

Dr. James believes that each generation exhibits norms in each of the three domains and this generation’s norm are decidedly on the negative side. The affective driving norms consist of valuing territoriality, dominance, and competition as a desirable driving style to name a few. The cognitive driving norms include inaccurate risk assessment while the sensorimotor driving norms are comprised of automatized habits, errors of perception, and lapses.

(b) Now select the norms that characterize your threefold self as a driver, passenger, or pedestrian.

I am not a particularly aggressive driver but I have learned from this class that I do have some negative driving norms. I value territory in parking lots and in the past have made the aggressive choice to confront a driver that has stolen my parking space. My negative affective driving norms has me putting some kind of value on parking stalls, I do not have this same reaction to other areas of driving so I believe that I developed this because of experiences with being treated unfairly. Risking my life to confront a bad driver shows that I have a negative cognitive driving norm. I always believed that I could control the confrontation but have learned in this class that I can not predict what other people’s reactions will be. I may display a negative sensorimotor norm in believing that I know who should go first in a parking lot. My perceptions have been proved to be wrong on several occasions.

(c) Try the AWM procedure on at least two trips or episodes. What is your conclusion? How can this approach be promoted in our society?

Trip 1

· I acknowledge that I feel annoyed when I pull into a parking lot

· I acknowledge that I think violent thoughts about drivers that take advantage of me

· I acknowledge that I willing to risk a confrontation to try to make the other driver feel contrite

· I witness that I hover over potential parking stalls to ward off other drivers

· I witness that I am hyper vigilant about what order drivers should park

· I witness that I glare or shake my head at discourteous drivers

· I will modify my behavior by not hovering over parking spots

· I will modify my behavior by not presuming that I know the order cars arrived at the parking lot

· I will modify my behavior by not confronting bad drivers

Trip 2

· I acknowledge that I feel anxious about finding parking

· I acknowledge that I think I still want to see drivers that take advantage of me be punished

· I acknowledge that I am ready to get angry if I am slighted

· I witness that I hover over potential parking stalls to ward off other drivers

· I witness that I am I am still looking at other cars as threats

· I witness that I frown at discourteous drivers

· I will modify my behavior by not taking deep breaths when I enter a parking area

· I will modify my behavior by not speeding to reach an empty space

· I will modify my behavior by not making faces at other drivers

Conclusion

I feel that I made a good amount of progress using the AWM program. I do not feel that I am cured but I believe that if I will continue to exercise the program that I will become a supportive driver in all areas of driving. This program works for other areas of resistance. I hate working out but I know that I have to develop a consistent workout routine so I used the AWM program to acknowledge my feelings, to witness my behavior, and to modify the behaviors. It helped me overcome my resistance to change. I believe that this should be included in a lifelong driver’s education program. This program works but it needs to be maintained and repeated throughout a driver’s life.

The Question I am answering is Question 7

(a) Find a road rage newspaper story on the Web that gives enough detail that you can reconstruct the interactions between the people involved. Now do a scenario analysis of events. The Road Rage and Aggressive Driving book gives some examples (see the Book Index under "Scenario analysis:. There is also an example in the Lecture Notes in the Section on Charts at Table 7 -- see
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/409a-g25-lecture-notes.htm#Charts

(b) Try to reconstruct the interactions by making a list or table of the steps, as illustrated in our textbook. Apply driving psychology principles to explain what's going on at each step and how it influences the outcome.

Road Rage Incident Ends in Crash November 13th, 2006 @ 4:03pm Sandra Yi Reporting	Notice the boy blames his behavior on adrenalin rather than the choices that he made.

A case of road rage turned violent. Now police are looking for the driver they say deliberately hit a man in his own front yard.

The victim says his adrenaline was going, so he decided to chase the suspect, but it all came to a crashing end along Bangerter Highway.

Eighteen-year old Ryan Smithson says he was a victim of road rage. Last night Smithson was driving home. When he stopped at an intersection in his neighborhood he noticed another driver making obscene gestures at him.	A young and inexperienced driver that has no explanation of why the other drivers choose to confront him. He admits to no bad or inattentive driving prior to seeing the mad make obscene gestures.

Smithson drove home and the other driver followed him. He thought it was a friend playing a joke on him so he got out of his car, and that's when things took a dangerous turn.	He did not take the aggressive attitude of the other driver seriously. His on attitude made him a target for the other driver and led to the next event.

Ryan Smithson, Crash Victim: "I walked to his car to see who it was and I didn't recognize him so I asked him what his problem was. And I took another step towards his car and he hits the gas and hits me. And I go over the top of the hood."	At this point he is still unaware of the danger that is only seconds away. He chooses to move towards the other driver in a threatening manner which leads to the next event the other driver trying to run him down.

Smithson says he didn't want the guy to get away so he got back in his car and followed him. Meantime, Smithson called his dad who called police and then joined in the pursuit in a separate car.	He chases the other vehicle because he said he didn’t want the other guy to get away. He picked a hazardous and illegal response. I believe he was in his own rage and wanted retaliation. He calls his father, presumably for support, and incites his father to join the illegal chase, whether out of anger or fear for his son, we do not know. His father did call the police, which mean that he was aware of right and wrong in that moment. At some point the father chose to actively aid in his son’s retaliation and ignore the dangers to both of them which led to the next event.

Smithson's dad said he heard what sounded like gun shots coming from the suspect's car.	The driver must have felt that the pursuit was becoming dangerous to himself and resorted to shooting at his pursuers in order to make them back off which led to the next event.

On Bangerter Highway the father and son tried to box the suspect's car, but he rammed the teen's car and then took off. Smithson was taken to the hospital with some back injuries.	After hearing gun shots the father and son decide to capture the villain by trapping him. At this point they must have been in a full rage because they ignored the deadliness of the situation which led to the trapped driver to smash his way out of the situation.

Police are now looking for the suspect. He was in a small, older model, silver Toyota Corolla with temporary plates. It should have front-end damage. Smithson says the driver had a blue bandana hanging on the rearview mirror.	The original intention of the eighteen-year-old was to not let the other driver get away but that is exactly what happened. Neither the father or son got the license plate number of the vehicle and the son ended this event with serious injuries to himself and his car.

Emotionally challenged behavior	Segment from story		How this step contributed to the trouble	What would be more supportive behavior?
1. Not realizing that he had exhibited some kind of provocative behavior.	Stopped at an intersection in his neighborhood he noticed another driver making obscene gestures at him.	There was probably some incident that occurred prior to this and the boy is either not telling or was driving with little attention.		The boy should have paid attention to his driving and avoided the behaviors that cause the other driver to pursue him.
2. Not realizing that the incident was escalating.	Smithson drove home and the other driver followed him	Not understanding the seriousness of an aggressive driver led the boy to put himself in danger.		At this step there were many different choices that he could have made, call 911 as soon as the driver stopped at his house, gone into his house without confronting the driver, or just stayed in his car.
3. Again, not realizing that his actions were contributing to the escalation.	"I walked to his car to see who it was and I didn't recognize him	This could have been interpreted by the other driver as an aggressive move.		Upon not recognizing the driver, he should have gone back to his car or in his house.
4. Confrontation causes the other driver to act.	So I asked him what his problem was. And I took another step towards his car and he hits the gas and hits me. And I go over the top of the hood."	He is now actively pursuing the other driver.		Removing himself would have saved him from being struck
5. Engaging in reckless driving and blaming his behavior on the adrenaline.	The victim says his adrenaline was going, so he decided to chase the suspect	This is where the victim becomes a criminal. His anger is leading him to drive recklessly in pursuit of the other driver		He should have taken the license plate number and reported it to the police and let them handle it.
6. His Dad did not defuse the situation; he escalated by joining the chase. He did call the police but continued to chase the other vehicle.	Smithson called his dad who called police and then joined in the pursuit in a separate car.	He now brings his Dad into the situation. The father in fear for his son calls the police but decides to join the chase which further escalates the situation		The father should have insisted that his son stop chasing the vehicle and return home. A suggestion to get the license plate number would have been helpful to the police.
7. Not realizing that the confrontation was reaching deadly proportions the father and son continue the chase.	Heard what sounded like gun shots coming from the suspect's car.	Instead of fearing death when they hear the gun shots, the father and son continue to chase the driver, pushing them all to more risky behavior		This should have been the wake-up call to all the parties that the situation was out of hand and that all that was needed to stop it was for the father and son to stop chasing the other vehicle.
8. Trying to negate their own responsibility by becoming vigilantes.	father and son tried to box the suspect's car, but he rammed the teen's car and then took off	They now have cornered what they know to be a very dangerous drive that is armed with a gun; this is almost certainly going to cause the driver to attack.		This is last thing that anyone should do. The police do not use this tactic unless there is an immediate danger and they have no other option. The father and son were acting as vigilantes in order to remove their own responsibility in escalating the event.

My Report on the Previous Generation

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/gc/g20-409as2004.htm

My Driving Personality Makeover Project, By Ikue Fukushima

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2004/fukushima/report2.htm

This report takes this class to the next level, Ms. Fukushima interpreted the information given in this class and created a comprehensive field experiment that she performed on her boyfriend. She took the assessments that are provide in our text and gave to her boyfriend to determine his level of aggression. After several assessments, she determined that he was a moderately aggressive driver. An examination of the three-fold self of her boyfriend she resolved that he shows deficiencies in his affective and cognitive domains.

After a review of past generation’s experiments and conclusions, Ms. Fukushima developed the parameters of her experiment. She created two experiments that she names the “cognitive writing assignment” and “road rage punishment”. With these two experiments she attempts to find out what will work best on her boyfriend. The results were a little vague but the punishment method seem to have no effect and the writing experiment had good short-term results

Ms. Fukushima discovered that the act of doing the experiment opened a dialog with her boyfriend and that he responded well to his faults being exposed. She decided that the experiments would benefit from a longer time frame and a combination of the two experiments. She intended to work with her boyfriend even after the class ended, in order to try to reduce his aggressive tendencies.

Conclusions

I enjoyed reading this report. I thought that this student showed that she had a good grasp of the teachings from this class. It is too bad that she was not driver herself, but she made her experiment work for her boyfriend. She had an interesting perspective on how to modify behavior but I was a little concerned with her desperation to change her boyfriend. It has been my experience that you can not change someone else that you can only change yourself.

Psychology: Theory and Application, By: Sarah E. Phillips

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2004/phillips/report1.htm

Ms. Phillips examines the mental process of driving psychology using the lectures, text books and her own experiences. She begins by defining the Three-fold Self and how it is influenced by early childhood experiences. She describes the methods used to change the three-fold self, such as Self-witnessing methodology and Driver’s Emotional Intelligence. Aggressive driving has become a problem in our society and part of that is due to a Driver’s Emotional Spin Cycle and the habits that are formed by all drivers.

Identifying driver personalities lead Ms. Phillips to discover that her normal sanguine personality translates to her diver personality. She attempts to avoid stress and conflict by being a supportive driver, but she admits that there are areas of her driver personality that could stand to be improved. Her mother’s presence in the car causes her to consciously self-witness her behavior but she does not do this with others in the car. She feels that the media and her peers have had little impact on her driving. She often found that the example the media and her peers provided was more of a deterrent to aggressive driving.

Ms. Phillips claims to have learned a great deal in this class about the psychology of driving and her own driving psychology, but it seems to me that she has not improved to the stage of feeling happy while driving. Her solution to stressful situations, like traffic or inconsiderate drivers, is to avoid the situation. If she had truly embraced the Driver Personality Makeover, she would try to empathize with bad drivers and bad driving situations in order to lessen the stress she feels.

Conclusions

I found this part of the report extremely difficult because so much of the prior generational reports included reviews of more prior generational reports. This creates a situation where I have to review a review of a review. It was also difficult because the prior generational reports included little of their own opinions, which left me unable to compare attitudes and solutions. I was left with accessing the understanding of basic principles of driving psychology and for the most part, all five students were able to regurgitate the teachings of the lectures and the text.

Advice to Future Generations

If you are reading this then you have read a lot of other reports and other advice from other students and we are all going to tell you not to procrastinate. Start writing your paper early and break it down to smaller segments to keep yourself from being overwhelmed. This is all very true but I think that it misses the most important piece of advice that you may need. To be able to produce this much comprehensive material you must truly be interested in the topic.

Take the time to do your own investigation. Look up studies that are listed in the references of the articles that are presented in the lectures. Try to relate the lessons learned here to other areas of psychology. The topic can be very interesting if you take the time to really examine it fully.

My Homepage: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409af2006/atkinson/atkinson-home.htm

Class Homepage: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/classhome-g25.htm