My 5th Outline (not oral)
Aggressive Men? Aggressive Women?
This is a presentation of Road Rage and Aggressive Driving pages 57-66
Written by Dr. Leon James and Dr. Diane Nahl
Published by Prometheus Books
www.drdriving.com
By: Leanna Bergeron

Instructions for this oral presentation are found at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy22/g22-oral.htm 

I. The Gender Effect

A. Who’s worse: women or men?

            1. Study of self reports of aggressive driving by men and women

            2. Some findings:

                        - More men than women report making illegal turns (18% vs. 12%)

                        - More men than women report swearing and name calling (59% vs. 57%)

                        - More men than women report deliberately cutting off other drivers

(19% vs. 10%)

-         More men than women report getting into physical fights (4% vs. 1%)

3. Results:

            - For all behaviors men report performing the behaviors more than

women. Some of the percentages are really close while others are very

different. Overall men are more aggressive drivers; however the number

 of aggressive women drivers is increasing.

 

B. My Opinion: I guess the reported higher level of aggressive driving by men is logical. They have higher levels of testosterone which increase their energy and adrenaline and therefore it makes sense that they would be more aggressive in all aspects of life.

 

 

II. Self-Control While Behind the Wheel

A. Managing our emotions is a skill

            2 Components

            1. self-appraisal: how we monitor and express our emotions/actions

            2. self-regulation: learning how to regulate the expression of our emotions

 

B. Developing emotional competence as a driver: we need to understand how our emotions are formed.

            1. Right brain activity is correlated with emotional activity

            2. Learn accountability for emotional actions and their possible effects on others

 

C. Learning to deal with and suppress distresses behind the wheel and suppress negative emotions

            1. postpone the immediate satisfaction you desire

            2. avoid savoring the victory and the anticipation of punishing and taking revenge

            3. redirect negative scenarios of justifications that give you permission to engage

 is hostile acts

 

D. My Opinion: I think it is very beneficial to learn self-control behind the wheel. By learning to deal with our negative emotions and reason them out we can become successful in other aspects of life as well as the driving arena.

 

 

III. Identifying Aggressive Thoughts and Feelings

A. Checklist for 3 Driving Areas

            1. Area 1: Fantasies of Retaliation and Revenge

            2. Area 2: High-Pressure Driving and Competition

            3. Area 3: Impulsive and Reckless Driving

            - These checklists are a method of self-witnessing.

 

B. My Opinion: I believe using self-witnessing techniques such as checklists are the best ways to help improve our driving bad habits.

 

Links:

http://worldwriter.homestead.com/driving.html

http://www.gendercenter.org/drivingstats.htm

http://www.google.com/answers/threadview?id=480572

 

My home page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409af2004/bergeron/home.htm