Report 2
My Report on Driving Psychology:
Driving in Traffic
By Samantha Sovde
Instructions for this
report are at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy26/409a-g26-report2.htm
I am answering Questions 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6.
Dr. Leon James,
April 2007
My Report on the Early
Generations
Discuss:
(i) How do their reports differ from your report?
(ii) How is the theory or content similar?
(iii) How do you evaluate their level of understanding of driving psychology?
(iv) What advice do you have about improving the generational curriculum (e.g.,
new topics, different exercises or activities)?
Grant
– This report is different in that it mainly deals with essentially trying to
figure out the internet. This student
decided in his senior year to finally be able to relax and basically thought
this class, not exactly the same we are in now, but none the less he was wrong. The class ended up being more of a challenge than
he had hoped for. The concept of the
internet was a whole new thing that Grant was just about to try and learn. This report takes you through all his
struggles and trials of learning all about the internet for this class.
Dellia
– This student, also in the first generation, wrote about trying to figure out
the internet and how it worked and all about email. Dellia was one of the many student in her
class that seemed to not understand all “the jargon listed in the syllabus that
would supposedly help out in doing the assignment.” Both Grant and Delia are dealing with an
issue different than what the 409 class now deals with. Now the class is about driving psychology and
not learning the internet.
Diane
– This report is based on a weekly conversation about the pedestrian traffic
flow. She explains how in class they
spoke about categories that pedestrians fall into while walking around. She also reflects on the discussions in class
and states her ideas and opinions about driving and becoming a reformed driver
and the process one might need to take to get to that stage.
Laura
– This student, in her lab report talks about convoys, a subject she found
interesting in one of her class discussions.
She also discusses the issue of how social expectations influence our
driving. This student, it seemed, didn’t
really have an outline of some sort that she was following to write her report
because everything just seems to be thrown together.
Denise
– This report is about the student, Denise, creating and up-keeping her
files. This student begins her report by
explaining how difficult it was to get started seeing as how even though she
previously took one of Dr. James’ classes, she didn’t exactly remember all the
UNIX commands that she needed to know to get though all the internet
stuff. This student talked about how one
week she was supposed to move all her files from one place to another and then
maintain a database.
Doug
– This students report is about learning to use the internet. This student, as did many before him,
struggled to learn how to use the internet and all its many functions. Doug struggled with things like Netscape and
search engines and even the
These previous generational reports
differ from mine in that they were all mostly dealing with learning how to use
the internet. Today, we all know how to
use the internet so we are now able to focus on other subjects and topics of
interest and use the internet in order to further research those topics.
Most of the early generational reports seem to have
some sort of focus on what they were studying, but their basic problems and
major struggles to overcome was learning to use the internet. These classes were taught when the internet
was still a new thing.
These reports were also different in
that most of them seemed to be in the style of journals. The students would have weekly assignments
and they would write their thoughts and feelings about the assignment in these
journals they posted online. The only
real similarity I noticed was that all these past students lived breathed,
worked, on and with the computer for their class just as we do now. Everything we do, every paper we write, it
all comes from the internet and ends up back on the internet.
The student’s level of understanding
of driving psychology was probably the same as ours is now. The only thing I might mention is that it
might not have been as focused just because they were also dealing with
something greater like learning how to use the internet and making sure that
they got the necessary postings posted and correctly.
Advice about improving the
generational curriculum would definitely be to get some new topics and
activities because everything especially now seems to be so mechanical. I mean that everybody is using everybody
else’s information since it seems like there isn’t anywhere else to get it from
than the places that have already been accessed.
I think getting the students involved in projects of
sorts out in the field rather than just what feels like constantly looking at
the same thing over again would probably be more interesting.
The Question I am
answering is Question 1
(a) Consider Table 4 in the Lecture Notes at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy26/409a-g26-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 try the AWM procedure on at least two trips or
episodes.
(i) Describe what happened. How did you obtain the data on
yourself? Be sure you discuss all three aspects of your threefold self.
(iii) What were your observations about yourself as a driver? What were for you
some difficult aspects of the experiment in relation to your threefold self?
(ii) What is your conclusion? How can this approach be promoted in our society?
(a) Table 4 in the Lecture Notes of Dr. Leon James’
The
first step is to acknowledge that one
has a particular bad habit. The second
step is to witness one’s self
actually completing this particular bad habit.
The third and final step to this approach is for any given driver to modify their particular bad habit.
(b) The fact that I only moved out here to
I
first noticed that from the beginning, maybe it’s because I only drive for a
few weeks out of the year when I’m home in
As probably known,
I do remember one day in particular being at the beach in
I
remember my roommate immediately getting upset at the traffic and I just
starred for a moment, wondered if there might be an accident and then
remembered this one day in class when a fellow student explained the problem of
traffic with his magnetic board and that’s when I thought that this was just a
simple domino effect.
There was probably no accident, nothing was being cleared
from the road, it was a simple issue of one car somewhere along the way slowed
for some unknown reason and created this domino effect that I’m sure occurs
there in that same spot everyday at the same time. In turn this one car slowing down slowed down
everyone else after it for miles. But I
couldn’t help but laugh to myself for not getting upset like some many others
around me I could see were. I merely sat
there in my car and understood the problem of traffic.
The other experience that I can think of was when LA’s
traffic was brought back to mind in a split second that same weekend I had
rented the car. I was on my way back
from the store, on my way to return the rental when this car cut me off for no
good reason. Immediately, I lost all
logic and became upset and proceeded to yell at the driver while in my car even
though he couldn’t exactly hear me, what with the windows rolled up from the
rain. I thought how could he be so
rude? I could have crashed and he didn’t
waive or apologize or anything, he just kept going.
Half
way through yelling I actually remembered this class. I still couldn’t help but be upset but I
began to rationalize why this might have happened. Maybe he was in a hurry and couldn’t wait to
signal or until there was enough room for him to properly move into my
lane. Maybe he was late picking somebody
up from wherever they might have been.
Whatever it was I was angry but I let it go, there wasn’t anything I
could do about it anymore.
So,
I reasoned with myself and acknowledged
that I yelled at this driver for cutting me off, and the next time it happened,
which unfortunately was about 20 minutes later, I remembered to modify my habit and held my tongue and
in my mind changed the subject very quickly to just dismiss it.
The Question I am answering
is Question 2
(a) Discuss your own driving habits in relation to the
following issues discussed in our textbook Road Rage and Aggressive Driving:
(i) Table 5.5 p. 130 on emotional intelligence
(ii) The three levels of driving -- oppositional, defensive, and supportive on
p.175
(iii) Explain where you get this style of driving and reacting behind the wheel
using some principles of driving psychology mentioned in the book.
(b) Discuss your self-assessment with your friends. Describe
their reaction. What is your conclusion?
(c) Discuss whether or not this course helps you to become
more aware of yourself as a drive, and whether it motivates you to change your
driving habits.
(a) Table 5.5 Driving with Emotional Intelligence: Transforming
Oppositional Symptoms into Intelligent Remedies from our text book Road Rage and Aggressive Driving: Steering
Clear of Highway Warfare describes this idea of emotional
intelligence. Emotional intelligence is
the idea of overcoming one’s struggle to let their emotions overwhelm them in a
stressful situation. Having emotional
intelligence means empathizing with “the other side,” controlling one’s
aggressive impulses, and thinking positive outcomes.
Table 5.5 takes you through five symptoms a driver might
have while on the road, the reactions they might strew toward and the reactions
of an emotionally intelligent driver as well.
The symptoms are obsessing about slow traffic, feeling combative with
self-righteous indignation, feeling excessively competitive, being
overcritical, and the love of risk taking.
One
of the symptoms I can most definitely confess to is the first. I hate traffic. There I said it, and it’s so incredibly
true. If I want to be an emotionally intelligent
person I would probably need to drive with the attitude that I need to leave
early and I would just have to constantly distract myself from thinking about
traffic.
The book also describes that there are three levels of
driving. The first is oppositional
driving which involves a culture of disrespect on highways, oversensitivity to
social pressure, an aggressive and hostile style, rebelling against authority
and a few other things. The second level
is defensive driving which involves treating all drivers the same way,
stereotyping drivers and cars, and feeling dissatisfied, stressed, and or
resentful along with a few others. The
third and final level is supportive driving.
This level involves having a supportive attitude towards other drivers,
shrinking one’s emotional territory, and feeling integrated with the flow of
traffic.
The third and final level is one that everyone should
strive to accomplish and I think that’s the goal of Dr. Driving and his
work. He’s there to teach every one
around that the world of driving is an aggressive habit that everyone has
created and that we basically just all need to get along.
I can’t exactly comment on my style of driving because I
don’t exactly drive. Before coming to
I’m
not exactly sure where this style came from other than my friends and not even
all of them. My parents don’t drive like
I did and I didn’t even drive like that all the time, especially not with
family in the car. It was probably a peer
pressure thing.
(b) I discussed this idea with my friend Julie who actually drove
with me for the first time when we went to
Julie then also agreed that my aggressive driving at home
must have been a peer pressure thing if it wasn’t exactly learned from my
family. I discussed with her the idea of
life-long driver education and how it all starts with children in the back seat
of cars. She remembered trying to drive
with the window squeegee in the back seat of the car with her mom driving; she
would try to be just like her mom.
When
she mentioned driving in the back seat that reminded me of when I was
little. I used to do that exact same
thing.
According to the three levels of driving, Julie felt that I
fell into the third level of driving.
There are some aspects of the second level that I would agree I
definitely had while in
Julie, originally from Colorado, shipped her car over here
to Hawaii when she moved so she’s been driving out here for the past 4 years
and can’t stand the traffic but whenever I’m with her in the car she never
seems to freak out the way I would back in LA.
(c) This course has indeed helped me to become aware of myself as a
driver. As Dr. James has explained in
class, once an aggressive driver, always an aggressive driver, this course
hasn’t changed my habits. In the
relatively short driving career I’ve had, I’ve definitely picked up quite a few
bad habits and those habits have been engrained in me so changing them will
definitely take time.
This class has however shown me what most if not all those
negative habits I have are and ways in which I may work to change them. I have to admit that some of the ideas in
this class I don’t exactly agree with but I think that once I start to actually
reform myself I’ll probably come around and strive to reform all the negative
aspects of my driving habits.
I
definitely do agree that there are some habits that need to be changed; one
being just the fact that I know I have a definite degree a road rage just from
growing up in
One thing I’ve noticed is I’m not exactly too sure as to
where exactly I’ve learned these negative habits. Thinking back on my upbringing, my mom isn’t
exactly an aggressive driver, in fact, I would consider her to be more passive
aggressive than anything else and my dad never really showed any signs of being
aggressive either, at least while my sister or I were in the car with him.
I
can say that at the time all my other friends were getting their licenses, I
did spend quite a lot of time with them and I have noticed that there was one
friend in particular that I was sort of becoming like in my driving
habits. She was my best friend at the
time and our driving actually complimented each other very well and I think
it’s safe to say I definitely took after her aggressiveness.
That
is actually a person I am no longer and haven’t been for quite some time and so
because of this class I’ve realized that and even though I don’t really drive,
I am still constantly thinking of ways I can change and modify those negative
habits.
The Question I am
answering is Question 4
(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).
(i) Name some ways they are similar, and some ways they are different.
(ii) Would either text be suitable for high school students?
(iii) Would the books be suitable for driver education?
(iv) How do they compare to some of your other textbooks?
(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 some specific ideas in these two books can help solve those problems.
(a) The two textbooks for this class do have some similarities and
differences. One immediate similarity is
that the two books share many of the same ideas about driving psychology. They both agree that driving psychology is an
important issue that needs to be researched further and discussed more.
One difference I noticed is that Road Rage and Aggressive Driving is more of an interactive book
where as Driving Lessons seems more
like a dry textbook. Peter Rothe’s Driving Lessons definitely has more
facts and it seems like more of the meat of the concept but Road Rage, at least to me, is actually
something I could read through in one or two sittings and actually know and
understand what was just read. Road Rage offers many “checklists” at
the end of sections that allows the reader to process what was read and then
figure out what type of driver he or she is.
I do think that both textbooks would be very suitable for
high school and for driver education classes but honestly Road Rage is just more interesting and for students in high school,
it would probably be easier for them to comprehend and quite possibly want to read. They compare to some of my other textbooks in
that they offer plenty of information on the topic at hand, plenty of resources
and facts to support their claims.
(b) If more people and the right people invested their time in
reading these books and helping to promote them in the media, then they could
quite possibly help solve society’s driving problems. There are many great concepts on driving like
emotional intelligence and the threefold self that more people need to learn
about.
I
honestly think if everybody in
Having a sense emotional intelligence will tell drivers to
not be so aggressive and to be more understanding of their surroundings. If driver were an emotional intelligent
driver then traffic wouldn’t be so hectic and it also probably wouldn’t be so
dense.
The Question I am
answering is Question 5
(a) Search Google
News section for
"road rage."
(i) Describe what you see. Make a numbered list of the methods or instruments
drivers have used to assault each other. Include the links to the stories you
analyzed so readers can see the whole story when they want to.
(ii) Is this something you and your friends knew about? Discuss the argument
some people make that road rage is an expression of media hype and there is no
real increase in such events.
(b)
(i) Using driving psychology theory from our two textbooks, explain what's
going on with drivers everywhere.
(ii) Connect what you found in the news with the problems and solutions you
discuss in Question 1.
(a) These are the articles I found from Google News however keep in
mind these are only within the past few days so one can only imagine how many
other violent acts of road rage there really are.
Speeding:
This article is about a three car crash in Arizona where two car where speeding
and both refused to yield to one another when the lane merged causing one of
the cars to push the other off the road and spin out just as a third vehicle
approached the situation and t-boned the spun out car.
Tailgating:
The article is about a man form
Shooting:
A man was sentenced to 30 years in prison for shooting at a man that wouldn’t
move out of the passing lane.
Child neglect:
A soccer mom was accused with misdemeanor child neglect for slapping her
15-year-old daughter and dropping her off on the Interstate after becoming
enraged over her daughter’s poor performance at her soccer game.
Punching: A
man was arrested yesterday for punching another man a year ago through his open
window at a stop light for a traffic incident that had occurred.
Crowbar:
A man was convicted of murder after beating another man with a crowbar in a
road rage attack.
To be perfectly honest, growing up in
In
fact the summer after my friends and I graduated from high school is really
when most of us really started to drive and I can remember that summer alone my
friends and I encountered numerous incidents of road rage, thankfully none
being as violent or dangerous as those expressed above.
I believe that I’d have to agree with the idea that the
increase in road rage is no more than media hype. Even though I explained that in one mere
summer my friends and I witnessed many exchanges of road rage, but honestly the
amount of deadly road rage incidents I or my friends have actually ever
witnessed other than on TV is zero. The
amount of fatal incidents isn’t increasing it’s just that the news has seemed
to change what they decide to show.
It’s a widely known fact that sex and violence sells on TV
and it’s apparent that most TV watchers tend to tune in when something
interesting is happening, like news about a car chase or a man hunt and so
forth. The news stations definitely know
this and so they probably show more negative things that go on in their cities
rather than positive because they know their rating will go up. Honestly, who would rather watch an
elementary school student participating in a play over a car chase?
(b) Drivers everywhere are being influenced by media and their
surrounding about this issue of fear. If
you think about it, everyone is afraid of something and those fears are being
taken out on others when drivers, for example, feel they are being threatened.
When
a driver is afraid of being cut off on the freeway, and someone does just that,
that driver is going to do everything in his or her power to regain control of
the situation and depending on the mental state of that person will determine
what type of action he or she completes to gain control.
All the articles that I found earlier prove that there are
many different levels of aggressiveness and sometimes they stem for what seems
like no real good reason at all. Take
for example the child neglect article.
The mother was so upset with her daughter’s performance in her soccer
game that she was willing to leave her on the side of the road. That mother had to have learned that behavior
somewhere and somewhere she learned that it was ok for behavior like that to
take place and she took her anger out on her own flesh and blood.
I’m sure there are plenty more articles just like this one
that show just how aggressive people are becoming. In one of the last outlines I had to do I was
reading through Road Rage and it was
explaining how the new increasing trend is that aggressive road rage is taking
the place of drunk driving. To replace
one negative with another negative is not good; we need to eliminate both
negatives.
The Question I am
answering is Question 6
(a) Select some student reports at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s2003/newsgroups
(i) Describe what they did – their ideas, their method, and their explanations.
(ii) 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 Type in "Leon James" (use the quotes).
(i) See if you can corroborate the conclusions of the student reports which
were done several years ago. What were people's reactions to driving psychology
issues I raised?
(ii) Why did they respond this way? What is your conclusion?
(iii) Is this still going on the same way in the electronic discussions?
Check some 2007 entries in the discussion on "women drivers".
(a) These student reports are all based on various articles and then
their reactions to them. The news groups
starting from about 15 and on are where the students start discussing driving
topics.
The
report from newsgroups
16 in particular is about driving and road rage. The different articles that compile this
report are about legal measures to reduce road rage, causing road rage for
amusement, and law enforcement as a cause of road rage along with many
others. The fact that people actually
think that causing road rage is amusing is a disturbing thought.
Why
is it that people are amused when other people get hurt? I believe that the American media plays a
huge role in the way society views themselves and those surrounding them.
If
the media wasn’t constantly reporting about tragedies and accidents than the public
wouldn’t think it’s normal to see them or hear about them. If and given number of people were asked what
they were more likely to die from, a car crash or a plane crash and through the
media they heard about three plane crashes in the past two weeks they are more
likely to believe they would probably die from a plane crash. The media negatively influences the public
all day every day.
This student agreed and disagreed with the article he chose
for his report. One of the things I
found interesting was that this student stated in his response to the first
article was that he didn’t drive. This,
to me seems a little harsh for him to then be passing any sort of judgments on
anyone else if he can’t exactly put himself in their shoes. However, coming right out and stating that
point in the first place is good.
Newgroups
18 offers another report about driving and road rage as well. The topics this student covered ranged from
bicyclists to women drivers and law enforcement as a solution. One of his articles was about driving as a
sport instead of transportation.
This student was able to look at these articles objectively
and understand that there is a real issue with the concept of road rage that
needs to be corrected before the problem becomes worse than it already is. Why is it is women drivers are usually
automatically stereotyped into categories like not being able to drive or just
plain too slow. I think it’s unfair and
if everyone strived to have more of a feminine driving style the roadways
wouldn’t be so aggressive.
These students seemed to gain a little more knowledge of
the topic they were commenting on in these reports. These topics help to influence my self-thought
more just by reading about the topics in the first place.
Sometimes
you don’t really think about something until you actually see it or hear about
it from something or someone else. I do
agree with most of the students in that road rage is a serious problem that
society needs to come to some sort of conclusion in trying to fix this problem
some way some how or it will only continue to grow.
(b) When I typed in “Leon James” in the Google Groups search link
provided above I found a various sort of reactions to driving psychology that
Dr. James raised, more bad than good.
Most people felt that Dr. James was crazy and didn’t know what he was
talking about or rather that he seemed to be just rambling on. I read a couple of posts that were wondering
if Dr. James thought he was special or something because he was called the
Doctor of Driving Psychology.
Honestly, when people go on their own rampages like these
all I can think is that they really have nothing better to do than complain
about someone else probably because they aren’t doing anything particularly
great with their lives. When someone has
an idea to share with the rest of the world, let him or her share it. Unless you have some seriously good facts
that prove that person wrong, let them have their time. Stop complaining about others and try and go
find out something that you can share with the rest of the world.
Advice
to Future Generations
My biggest advice to
future generation is to not procrastinate.
For the first report I really did wait till the very last minute to
finish it and I learned from that because for this one I’m not doing the
same. A fifteen page report is a lot of
work no matter how easy it may seem especially when it comes down to that last
moment when you haven’t quite met the page deadline but you feel like there is
nothing left to say.
Just save yourself some grief and
get it done early. Especially with this
last report, don’t wait till the last minute because guaranteed you’ll have
many other things due all at the same time; it is the end of the semester and
you’ll probably already be staying up all night just to study for your finals,
you really don’t want this added stress.
This honestly wasn’t the
most difficult assignment it’s just incredibly time consuming and you don’t
want to wait ill the last minute. As I said
earlier, just get it don’t early, I promise it will make everything that much
more easy for you and the rest of your classes.