My Fourth Non-Oral Outline

Emotional Intelligence for Drivers

Road Rage and Aggressive Driving: Steering Clear of Highway Warfare, Dr. Leon James and Dr. Diane Nahl, Published by Prometheus Books, 2000, p. 111-119.

By Robert Lee

I. Inner Power Tools

a. Venting is a method of expression and releasing one’s anger and aggression.

b. The more one is convinced of these mental fabrications, the less one is capable of backing out of the coming showdown.

c. An aggressive action can cause deep regret, embarrassment, financial loss, depression, injury, or death.

d. There are two components to help with your anger management techniques:

i. Relaxation techniques is to reduce your physical arousal

ii. Mental reappraisal of the situation.

e. Emotional self-control consists of two things:

i. Systematically observing your thinking.

ii. And these inner power tools provide the techniques to restructure your assessment of the situation.

II. Overcoming Emotional Hijacking

a. Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

i. Goleman shows that emotional explosions are literally “neural hijackings”

ii. These intense feelings are accompanied by detectable neural discharges in the brain, especially the amygdale, which is a result of an intensified emotion.

b. Six components of emotional Intelligence

i. How to self-regulate negative mood shifts.

ii. How to reappraise a situation and look for alternative explanations

iii. How to empathize with “the other side.”

iv. How to persist in a plan despite distracting frustrations.

v. How to control or neutralize one’s aggressive impulses.

vi. How to think with positive outcomes.

c. Goleman says that we need educational programs that teach people to better manage their feelings (affective education).

i. People need to realize that they have more choices than flight or fight.

ii. When this method was implemented in public schools and playgrounds, some results were:

1. fewer fights and verbal put downs

2. greater emotional self-awareness

3. better frustration tolerance

4. greater skills in conflict resolution

5. better anger management

III. Three Levels of Emotional Intelligence

a. Level One- Oppositional Driving

i. At this level we’re unfit to handle road exchanges, because our feelings are oppositional and negative.

ii. It’s east to interpret a traffic incident as personal insult and produced a bad mood or other negative consequences

b. Level Two- Defensive Driving

i. Teaches drivers to concentrate on the safety of the vehicle, driver, and passengers.

ii. Driving defensively does not provide immunity towards negative thoughts

c. Level Three- Supportive Driver

i. During this stage we overcome the disadvantages to inherent oppositional and defensive driving orientations.

ii. We learn to become a friendly driver and we become nicer to everyone on the road.

Helpful Websites:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bs2000/anthony/oral.html

http://www.smartdriver.co.nz/Articles/Emotional%20Intelligence.htm

http://drdriving.org/youth/james1.htm

My Homepage:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409as2005/lee/home.htm