Report 2:
My Understanding of Driving Psychology
By Kyle Takeshima
Instructions for this report are @
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy22/409a-g22-report2.htm
I am answering
questions 1,4,7,5,3
Question 1:
(a) Consider Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4 in the
Lecture Notes, in the Section on Driving Psychology Theory and Charts at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy22/409a-g22-lecture-notes.htm#Charts
Consult the article from which the Tables were taken. (b) Using your own words,
describe the three behavioral domains and levels of a driver (nine cells). (c)
Illustrate each domain with your own driving behavior skills and errors, or
that of another driver you know well, or a driver in a particular movie. (d)
Make up a "driving personality makeover" plan for yourself (or
another driver you know well), relating specifically to negative thoughts
you have about other road users. (e) Discuss the problems you anticipate in
carrying out such a plan successfully. (f) Any other comments you wish to make
(B) The question that I am answering is question number one. As we have all heard a million times, everyone should follow the drivers threefold self. There is the Affective, Cognitive, and Sensorimotor. The dictionary says that affective is defined as “Influenced by or resulting from the emotions.” The affective self is the part of the person that can be swayed by how things on the road are going. The affective self is ever changing especially on the unpredictable roads. I think the affective self has one of the biggest roles in disposition while a person is driving and how they perceive actions that happen while on the road.
The cognitive part is what the driver is thinking. This is all about what the person is thinking when things happen or when a situation arises. The cognitive part of the three fold self is very much like the affective part but the cognitive is how a person thinks while they are driving. If someone is tailing you so you will let them pass the cognitive could be telling you a million different things. In this situation a person could think “I should let him pass there maybe an emergency.” Or the person could be thinking, “I will drive even slower if this guy wants to tail me.” The cognitive is just how you think about different situations.
And the sensorimotor part of the equation is just how you react to certain situations. The sensorimotor is also the act of driving the vehicle. Sensorimotor can also be counted as how you are driving, weather you are a supportive driver, defensive driver, or aggressive driver. The sensorimotor part of driving takes in the information to tell what kinds of drivers are surrounding you. The sensorimotor portion can also make driving more pleasant for yourself and for other drivers if you are a supportive driver.
(C) My driving habits may not be the best but I know that I am no where near the worst. For the affective part of the three fold self, I am guilty of letting my feelings sway my driving a lot. If I am feeling happy or excited I tend to drive fast and aggressively. When I am riding my motorcycle if I am listening to a song that hypes me up I will start to ride quicker. For the cognitive part I am usually pretty cool in the head. I don’t think the good thoughts about people when they are rushing around and honking at me, but I don’t mess with people like slowing down if someone is rushing me and such. And for the sensorimotor, I always try to wave to thank people and I always try to say sorry if I know that I did something wrong. I try to be pleasant on the road because I know there are a lot of crazy people out there.
(D) This is my plan for making myself a supportive driver. I ride a motorcycle for most of my commuting and they teach you to think that all drivers are idiots and to watch out for everything. I think this helps me on my way to becoming a supportive driver. I figure that it is okay that I think that everyone is an idiot, but that is okay. Just accepting the fact that I have to watch out for everyone and everything is not too bad??? I think that I should be more accepting when people endanger me because even though I get mad and shake my head or do other gestures I should think to myself, that they didn’t mean to almost kill me.
(E) I do know that I need to work on my affective self though. I often let my music affect my riding or driving. I ride fast when there is a song that I like on, and I ride slower to more mellow music. This is how I know I need to control my affective self. For the affective self, maybe I should stop riding while listening to music. This will also help me to concentrate on the road and other drivers more. As far as negative thoughts towards other drivers I think that as a rider I need to always have those negative feelings because the day that I don’t is the day I will get hurt on the motorcycle. The only problem I see with the plan to become a supportive driver or rider is I love music. I love to take my ipod even if I am only going to the store five minutes away. And in the car there is always music. The only thing I can think of is to download more soothing songs for when I go riding and maybe even listen to classical music.
Question
4:
(a) Select six student reports on driving
psychology from Generation 20 , as listed in the
Readings Section of the Lecture Notes. www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy22/409a-g22-lecture-notes.htm#g20-reports
You must select any two students from Report 1, two different students
from Report 2, and two still different students from Report 3. So there will be
a total of six different students, two students for each report. (b) Summarize
each of the six 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 do their ideas influence what you yourself think about these issues? (e)
Any other comments you wish to make
The question that I am answering is question four.
Report 1:#1 Jenny Arakaki http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2004/arakaki/report1.htm
(B) Report one by Jenny
Arakaki http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2004/arakaki/report1.htm
is the first report one that I selected.
She says in her report that we are in a “Fast-paced society,” and she
also says that we all “Live by the clock.”
This is the sad truth. Jenny goes
on to explain and define all of the terms that we have come to know by
heart. Things like the driver’s three-fold
self, road rage, and the scoff law.
Jenny does talk about emotional intelligence and cites Daniel Goleman for coming up with, “six
components of emotional intelligence that can be learned through practice. They
are: How to evaluate a situation and look for alternative solutions and
evaluations. How to regulate negative mood shifts. How to
empathize with your other side of yourself. How to
keep up with your goals despite your distracting and negative frustrations.
How to control your negative aggressive impulses. How to look at the
situation overall in a positive regard.”
(C) Jenny also talks about the fact that she used to be a good driver. Things like both hands on the steering wheel and stopping at stop signs, but things and influences like the media and her friends have changed that. Her coming to the realization that she has acquired bad driving habits seems to be a step in the right direction. She now says that she tries to be a supportive driver, or at least a more courteous driver.
(D) Jenny says that she gained some skills to become a better driver. She says that the class has at least helped her to realize some of her bad driving practices, and she is more aware of the things that may make her a bad driver. Jenny seeing the light of being a supportive driver makes her hope that others will see her being courteous and try to do the same on the road.
(E) She does not really influence me but she seems to be a similar driver to myself. Not overly aggressive but not a supportive driver either. But we are similar in the way that we changed our driving style. I drove well with my parents and even won third place in the state sponsored driver education challenge but that all went down the tubes. Change is the word of the day.
Report 1:#2 Sarah Phillips http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2004/phillips/report1.htm
(B) The second report one that I choose was that of Sarah Phillips. http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2004/phillips/report1.htm Sarah seems like she needed to take this course because of how much she has to commute everyday. She says, “This topic involves me because every day I drive about 60 miles and I see some of the most senseless driving acts everyday.” I can imagine the frustration that she must feel everyday. Sarah says that she expected to learn the influences behind the various aspect of driving. Sarah talks about lifelong drivers’ education from a young age and this is something that I agree with. Sarah’s parents are also just like my parents. With one parent I can just be relaxed, and with the other I need to be a proper driver. I feel your pain Sarah.
(C&D) Sarah says that the class has helped her to become aware of the kind of driver that she is. The class has helped her to see where her strengths and weaknesses are on the road and in a vehicle. She also says that the class has helped her to become less stressed out while stuck in traffic or on her daily commute.
(E) Sarah’s driving style seems more like my own. She seems super laid back in the car until pushed too far. She says that she was not influenced much by the media and her friends which is a good thing. She knew what it was like to be on the opposite end of the stick because many of her friends did not have cars and so they drove hers. I think that this experience has let her see how stressful it can be to someone when a new driver is driving their car.
(F) I think that Sarah had a unique experience because of the fact that many of her friends did not have a vehicle. She had insight into what her mother must have felt when she first stared driving so it was like she knew the responsibility of teaching and watching a new driver.
Report 2:#1 Ikua
(B)For report two I decided to summarize and read Ikua Fukushima’s web page. http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2004/fukushima/report2.htm From looking at Ikua’s report, even though she didn’t drive and didn’t even have her permit she did a good report. She did the report on her boyfriend and she was able to observe all of his driving, good and bad. This is great because you can observe the driver in it’s totality. The only thing she couldn’t get was what he was thinking, and it seems like he spoke his mind anyway so she got that also.
(C) The report has helped her boyfriend to realize the extent of his swearing and aggressive driving behaviors. This report influences me because it teaches me that people can observe a lot even from the passenger’s seat when you think their not watching. This is an interesting view from a driving psychology class. She was not the driver but was still able to observe everything that was going on in the car and probably more than some people would like to admit.
(D) For Ikua the project was more for her boyfriends benefit. It seemed like he was a pretty crazy driver though so maybe if she helped him to see some of the errors that he was making by being an aggressive driver she helped herself out also.
(E) I think that it is great that she got to watch a different driver. This gives a totally different perspective and a whole new set of information. She was able to share some things that her boyfriend probably did not want her to share and notice while he is driving. There are probably a lot of things that students in the class leave out just because they are shame or they do not want to share the kinds of things that happen in their cars.
Report 2:#2
(B) The second person that
I selected for report two was Shari Longboy. http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2004/arakawa-longboy/report2.htm
(C) She said that the self witnessing and her experiments
have helped and, “As a result from this
experiment, I realized that I could change. I realized that these bad habits
are breakable, but it just takes a little work. Breaking my bad habits is
totally worth it.”
(D) What
(E) She has influenced me to take a look at the book and try to look are the checklist and see where I fall in the driver categories This seems to have helped her out because she made the plan to change her driving behavior and she says that she feels better after a long day and driving home. Shari… Relaxation is the key to life.
Report 3:#1 Jeremy Kubo
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2004/kubo/report3.htm
(B&C) Report three
I choose to read Jeremy Kubo’s web page because I liked his title of, “My Proposal for Lifelong Driver Education.” http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2004/kubo/report3.htm Jeremy was looking at lifelong driver’s education and what he thinks can
be done to implement such an ambitious plan.
I like where he talks about how stereotypes are all around us and gives
the example of the new elderly female driver.
Those three words instantly rang bells in my head. I was thinking that, that is a triple
negative, but it is all just a stereotype.
He and I gained an understanding about driving, stereotyping, and
education for drivers in general. It is super easy to point the finger at others
and say, this is what is wrong with the roads, but it is not easy to look at
ourselves and realized that we may need to change. Thanks for the enlightenment Jeremy!!!
(D) Jeremy
gained and helped me to gain a deeper understanding of why driver education
should be life long. He talks about how QDC’s should be implemented, voluntarily of course. He also learned about stereotyping and why it
happens so often but is often times just not the whole truth.
(E) Jeremy’s report has taught me a lot about
stereotyping and a lot of myths about the road.
It is almost like people with a lot of driving experience, such as older
drivers, have it worse than younger new drivers with no experience. The lifelong drivers
education could be a great idea but people would just have to jump on the
bandwagon and do it for the betterment and safety in our society.
Report 3:#2 Jesse Chang http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2004/chang/report%203.htm
(B) And the final report I decided to choose for this question was Jesse Chang. http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2004/chang/report%203.htm Jesse seems to be the most willing to come out and say “ This report made me realize through the Acknowledge, Witness, and Modifying process that I do suffer from extreme road-rage, but through this process I will be able to overcome my tendencies for road-rage.”
(C) Jesse makes a bold statement and says that the reason that van cams didn’t make it in Hawaii is because drivers knew that they drove irresponsibly but didn’t want to change that or face up to it. This brings up another good point, how can we implement a lifelong driver’s education when people don’t even want to change because they think nothing is wrong with what everyone is doing, and a safety tool such as the van cam gets such strong opposition?
(D) Jesse has gotten a lot out of this class. He has a comprehensive plan from infancy all the way to the elderly stage for a lifelong driver education. Jesse says that people are naturally competitive at the wheel. I think for a lot of people this statement is true. Almost everything else is in a competitive nature so why not driving? Jeremy gets so deep as to say, “I always thought that people are who they are, and driving is a reflection of who you are.” I think this to be a true statement in a lot of aspects.
(E) His report influenced me in the sense that he
showed me how blind people are. Jesse
showed me that people don’t want to change even if it is for the betterment and
safety of society. A little change may
go a long way, but here in
Question 7:
(a) Our textbook Road Rage and Aggressive
Driving has exercises in several chapters. Do the following four exercises:
(i) Exercise on scenario analysis on p. 129; (ii)
Exercise on self-assessment on p.134; (iii) Exercise on identifying assumptions
on p. 131; and (iv) Exercise on negative vs. positive
driving on p. 122. (b) What were your reactions to the exercises? (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? (e) Any other comments you wish to make.
The question that I am answering is question seven and the exercises on page 130 are about a drivers emotional intelligence and they talk about the kinds of things that people are probably telling themselves when other drivers cause them emotional stress. This exercise talks about different ways that you can take bad situations and turn them into good things or to look at the bright side. The table on page 130 talks about examples of wrong behaviors things like, being over critical, the love of risk taking, and feeling excessively competitive. A lot of the things that we think and say while we are driving are about 50% true, and the rest is just our negative subjective thinking kicking in. Things like, “He’s taking so long to come out of the parking stall, that guy is so stupid.” While it maybe true that the person is taking a long time to come out of the stall, maybe they are taking their time so they don’t hit anything or anyone while they are reversing out. And even something like saying that someone is taking a long time, is a subjective term. How long is a long time? Then there is the part of the comment saying that the person reversing out is stupid. How does the other driver know that the person is stupid. It is almost like saying looking around before you reverse is stupid, when we all know this is not true. This table is helpful because these are common things that people do and say on the road and these are constructive ways to think about the situations that people may other wise lose their cool.
The letter in the book (pg. 131) is also an example of how people defend their bad behaviors and think that others are in the wrong. This guy did many things wrong and still blamed it on the officer. He was drunk first of all, and he was not parked in a parking stall. He also thinks that there is noting wrong with where he was parked because as he states, “People had been passing me for half an hour.” Just because people were passing him, does not mean that they didn’t have to go out of their way to do so. While they were going around him they also may have had to go into an oncoming lane putting themselves and others in danger. When honked at by the officer he honked back and then got out and yelled obscenities at the honking car. All of these actions and he thinks that he is the victim. Even at the end of the letter he does not take responsibility for his actions and says it cost him $2000 and his company vehicle. Dr. James should just mail him the Road Rage book instead of taking time to answer his question.
The exercise on page 134 is a good learning tool. This makes you tell yourself what you do well and what you need to work on while driving. Self assessment and self realization are very important and many times they are the first step to a real and positive change. This exercise also tells the person to have a passenger tell you of your driving good and bad. This helps to clear out unconscious bad driving behaviors. These maybe things that a person as the driver doesn’t even realize that they are doing or things that they may not want to admit to themselves on their self assessment report. When you assess yourself or when someone else assess’ you as a driver you get to see what is really going on. It is like getting a grade for your driving. If you do the self assessment report and a passenger does it with you and you both come out with something totally different for the same person, the driver may have a skewed view of his or her own driving safety. This is why if a person can be true to themselves about their driving then they can gain a lot from this exercise.
The
last part of this question is a chart about emotional intelligence in the
car. This exercise is effective because
on the road a lot of people blame others for things that may or may not be
their fault. The chart reminds me a lot
of the letter the book shows about the driver who received a DUI. People are blaming things that are not in
their control on other drivers and letting their emotions take over their
driving. When a person’s emotions
especially anger, takes control then they have lost control of the
situation. Anger also makes people
become aggressive drivers. Negative
driving is how most of the
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/leonpsy21/409a-g21-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
The question that
I am answering is question five.
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(D) I feel that driving is a big problem more so now days because people are trying to make the most out of every minute. The car is referred to as the mobile office in some cases. Everyone is trying to take advantage of the time that they know will have to be spent in the car while going home. Cell phones and laptops make it possible to get work done in the car. This may be helpful but is a huge distraction to the driver and their full attention is not in the task at hand, which is the actual act of driving. Another thing is that there are more cars on the roads. More cars mean more traffic and more accidents or crashes.
(E)Dr
James solution to the problem is to stop the accordion affect of highway
driving. This is a good solution but I
don’t think that drivers are ready for something like this. Most people already don’t like to let
people in from the on ramps and don’t like people switching lanes into their
lane. This process would also be
impossible to enforce if it ever became a law. People also don’t like changing the way
that things are. This is what Jesse
Chang talked about in his report, the people of
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) articles (ii) newsletters (iii) style (iv) probable audience (v) public relations or policy (vi)
advertising (vii) size (vii) ranking (viii) Other sites that link to each.
(c) Any other comments you wish to make. (A) The question that I am answering is question three and I looked over the two websites drivers.com and drdriving.org. I liked the layout of drivers.com more because I don’t like it when you have to scroll down to read all of the information. But while the scroll down was a minus for drdriving.org, the information that the pages contained was a lot more in depth. While talking about comparing the two websites, I thought that the drivers.com looked more like they want to sell you something other than an information page. Drdriving.org’s website seemed friendly and more of an information and family oriented website. While looking through the links on the drivers.com site it just had other links to pages. And it looked like pages that wanted to sell something or a service. I think the endings of the web addresses say it all, .com and .org. Drivers.com had ads and some sort of pop up that my blocker had to keep blocking. Drivers.com also sold computer drivers which I think is odd. Drdriving.org seems like a happy place to be with the picture of the driver smiling and waving. The purpose of drdriving.org is an informational page that talks about how to become a supportive driver and takes in questions from people that visit the website.
(B) One of the main differences of the two pages is that the information and type of information on the two respective websites are a lot different. Drdriving.org is composed of hard facts and driving psychology trying to create a more aware and better driving society. The information from drivers.com seems to come from a variety of perspectives. Some of the articles were written by former race car drivers, and some were written by random columnists. The articles themselves were totally different. In Drivers.com they had articles about SUV’s, stolen cars and driving related things such as traffic cams. The articles were short but and easy to read but I often thought that the articles maybe too short. In Drdriving.org the material is longer but it is spelled out way more clearly. The information shows both sides of the coin, the hard facts and numbers and the psychological aspect of why these things are important. This was a big plus even though I didn’t like scrolling down for all the information. The probable audience is also different for both. Drdriving.org’s visitors are people trying to improve their driving or trying to learn how to better educate their children on driving. Drivers.com’s audience maybe interested driving topics or they may just be interested in (computer) drivers. (V,VI,VII) The public relations policy for both sites are different. Drdriving.org uses some of the letters sent in as examples of how the average drivers veiws things. They take in questions which I think is a big plus. The only thing that I found for drivers.com was a contact e-mail and it even says that if a person wants to be a columnist they can send things in. This shows that any Tom or Jane could be a columnist. As far as advertisement I thought that drivers.com were trying to sell you something the whole way. I think my pop up blocker had to do it’s job. In Drdriver.org I saw that there were no apparent sales of anything. Over all I thought both were well laid out sites. Drdriver.org had a lot of information but was long. And Drivers.com had too little information by sometimes what I thought were sketchy columnists. My Report on Generation 22. The speaker was Justin Golder and he talked about neuropsychology and driving. He basically says that neuropsychology can be used for a variety of things. From things like making the roads safer to drive on to screening for at-risk drivers. I think that his overall view agrees with my opinions about driving. Many time people jokingly say, “They shouldn’t have given you, your license.” The unfortunate part about this is sometimes it is true. I have seen people at the DMV trying to take the eye test several times because they can not see the letter. These kinds of test would help to make the road a safer place in my opinion, but would be hard to implement because the people who know they shouldn’t drive but do can be the most stubborn people out there.
The second speaker I choose was Robert Lee. Robert was talking about motor vehicle
safety and “Carnage Alley.” His report
was shocking to me because he told about many of the hard facts and
numbers. You hear about crashes and
things of that nature all of the time but when you get a scope of the
totality it is flabbergasting. Robert
found the information that he had gathered astonishing also. I agree with the basic safety standards
that are enforced like wearing seatbelts and drinking and driving. I also like that he showed that For the last person I decided to choose Kyle Santos’s oral presentation. Kyle talks about becoming a supportive driver. A concept that we have been discussing and trying to work towards all year long. Kyle’s views are hopeful for the future and like me wonders and hope that when we do something for someone else on the road that in turn they will later do the same for someone else. But the only problem with this is, it is easy to be doubtful of the whole supportive driver concept. While it is something that we should all strive for I don’t know if people are ready for that kind of change on our roads and in our society. Kyle also talks about the three levels of driving. The oppositional, the defensive, and the supportive. This material should be important to everyone because if you know where you stand you can better understand how to change your driving behavior in to the supportive driver that everyone should strive to be. ADVICE TO FUTURE GENERATIONS… This is the important part so I will make the
writing a little bigger than the rest of the report. For the most part I am the ULTIMATE
PROCRASTINATOR! I used to write 7-10
page papers the night before they were due, after I finished work at Class Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy22/classhome-g22.htm My Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/40as2005/takeshima/409a-g22-home.htm
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