Acknowledging, Witnessing &
Modifying Driving Behaviors
Report 4
By: Abigail Huliganga, Ashlee
Matsui & Sheena
Casaquit
PSY 409a, Spring
2008, Generation 27
Dr. Leon James, Instructor,
Section 1: Lecture Content By: Abigail Huliganga
Material is based on Dr.
James writings on “How Driving Psychology Explains what is Aggressive Driving”
found on www.drdriving.org
What is
aggressive driving?
This week’s lecture was about looking into the
components of aggressive driving. Every
driver has a component of aggressive driving.
Aggressive driving, according to Dr. James, can be seen in three
different ways: aggressive driving as a philosophy (p), as an attitude (a), and
as a weakness (w). Together, this
becomes what is called the PAW syndrome.
As a PHILOSOPHY
Aggressive driving can be seen as a philosophy
because people have the choice of how they want to drive. Drivers have their
own thought process of how they are going to act on the roads. When under this aggressive philosophy, road
regulations and civility do not apply all of the time. As a driver, that person has the right to
choose what laws to follow and decides what danger to put others in. The driver
may want to speed in areas in which they feel the speed limit is too low, or
retaliate when someone else offends them on them on the road.
As an ATTITUDE
In other ways, aggressive driving can also be seen
as an attitude. It has almost become part of the norm for drivers to develop an
aggressive attitude on the roads. Being
passive is seen as weak and are looked at as poor
drivers. Having an aggressive attitude makes drivers believe that no one can
take advantage of them and that they have the power over other drivers. Driving seems to have become a competition on
who can get there first which is very aggressive. When under this mentality, drivers feel that
they are more entitled than others and develop a “me first” attitude which
becomes dangerous on the roads.
As a WEAKNESS
Although some may think that having an aggressive
attitude on the road shows power, it is actually an emotional weakness. Driving aggressively is a lowered ability to
cope with routine exchanges on the road.
Becoming hostile, yelling, fighting and even
retaliating shows that you are not able to find other healthy solutions to
solving a problem. It takes more
energy and strength to evaluate your faults and try to improve them rather than
reacting without thinking. This is what
makes an aggressive driver weak, the inability to have emotional intelligence
while driving.
The PAW Syndrome
These three components, Philosophy, Attitude and
Weakness come together to what Dr. James refers to as the PAW Syndrome. All three of these areas are aggressive and
disrespectful when expressed on the roadways.
Dr. James points out that the PAW syndrome is part of our culture of
disrespect. It is not just in
Where
does it come from?
The culture of disrespect is passed on by
generations. It is a socialization habit
that is trained and transmitted from one generation to the next. In past lectures we have discussed the “road
rage nursery” in which children, even at a young age, can develop bad driving habits
from their parents simply by being passengers in the car. If their parents are aggressive drivers, they
are more likely to grow up to be the same type of driver as well. Media portrayal also has a big impact on how
we visualize how to drive and treat others on the road. Since we see improper ways of driving as a
norm it accounts to why we think alike.
It is why most people think it is okay to think of aggressive driving as
a philosophy and an attitude that is acceptable.
How can
this be fixed?
The PAW syndrome will only increase over time
without lifelong driver education programs.
We are worst drivers than our parents and our children will be worse
than us if these programs are not implemented.
These programs should include ways in which people find alternatives to
venting and acting aggressively to others.
One way in which to approach this problem is to Acknowledge, Witness and
Modify (AWM) approach. (This is furthered
discussed in this report). Using this approach, one must start acknowledging
they have a problem, then self witness their behaviors by either monitoring
yourself through journals or have someone point out faults to you and then try
to modify your behavior. The goal is to
take the time to think rather than react aggressively right away. The more we notice, the more we give
ourselves the chance to change and become a more respectful driver on the
roads.
Team Presentations on Readings By: Ashlee Matsui
Objective
self-assessment for drivers
The road rage and aggressive spectrum exist on a
single behavior continuum, but aggressive driving also encompasses a mental
state where we impulsively take more risks.
The goal of self assessment is then to identify the problem that tends
to produce the emotional rage.
Three
step program
1st step: acknowledge- we need to
realize that every driver, including ourselves, needs proper education when it
comes to controlling our emotions
2nd step: witness- watching your own
actions, at this step you need to understand the degree to which you are
aggressively driving
3rd modify: these deals with the
behaviors you want to change
It is important to continuously recycle these three
steps to see optimal results.
The next
topic the group discussed was Exercise: Assessing myself as a driver
Step 1 : make list of best
and worst characteristics as driver
Step 2: tell people who drive with you to let you
know of your best and worst characteristics
Step3: compare your list with your passengers
When you actually take the time to write down what
you feel are the good and bad aspects of your style of driving and compare it
with another then you can see all the errors that you have made or thought was
right.
A-Acknowledge
The process to developing better emotional intelligence
is to get a better understanding of the
road rage syndrome, and while this is the most significant step in changing
undesirable habits its also the hardest. This can consist of 1000 habits that are done
unconsciously.
Studies show that people tend to rate themselves
from an 8 to a 10 on a scale of driving excellence, 75% confess to aggressive
driving. There also lies importance in
the acknowledgement of these three areas: emotions, thoughts and actions; one
should also be specific to what you want to change. I believe that if one is not specific to what
they desire to change it makes the task more difficult, its easier to work step by step than to take on a
chunk of mistakes.
W-witness
The next topic the group discussed was witnessing
self-witnessing, this self monitoring or by 3rd parties can be
measured by:
Speed
Blood alcohol level
Yelling
Failure to yield
But no instrument can detect thoughts and feelings,
self-witnessing is considered to be
the act of verbalizing thoughts and feelings during activity in order to create
a description of what’s happening.
Charles Cooly: “looking glass
self”, his definition of self monitoring.
The objective
driver awareness increases by verbalizing thoughts behind wheel since it
allows one to “listen in.” Self-witnessing
allows the driving personality to emerge.
The group then explains that safe driving is combination of automatic
reflexes and being alert to monitor events.
The next
topic was the examples of negative and positive events:
Negative: feeling claustrophobic
Shouting,
gesturing or shaking your head
Using
the vehicle to pressure, threaten or attack
Positive: feeling good when some
one waves thanks to you
Being
ready to return a favor or kindness
Feeling
responsible for everyone’s safety
Enjoying
the idea and feeling of showing kindness to another driver
Checklist:
witnessing your aggressive driving
purpose of the
list is to alert you to the areas of the driving personality to be
witnessed.
Three behavior zones: emotions, thoughts and
actions
Cultural norms
Actually observe as happening is critical
M-modify
This task can be overwhelming if you don’t break it
down, working on one behavior at a time and in order to make this a life long habit one would need to systematically map
emotions, thoughts and actions.
Examples of thoughts and actions:
Leaving 15 min earlier (actions)
Contradicting self each time you think some drivers
are fools (thoughts)
Resistance
to change
The next topic discussed was that drivers initially
resist change in styles of their driving. The sense of self-righteousness
coupled with sense of entitlement builds strong feelings of resistance to
change in out own behavior.
Dr.
Arnold Nerenberg:
Aggressing driving becomes road rage when you let other
driver know your mad
In 1999, 2 billion hostile unrecorded exchanges
We believe closer to 4 billion
Drivers
Diary: The purpose of the diary is to record actions while driving during
certain amount of times and to notice the difference between each trip what
influenced those feelings and finally to plan to strategy to change typical
patterns. I think this could prove to be
a useful tool in changing driver behavior and actions, if we cannot see for
ourselves our mistakes, its harder to believe that we
are actually doing them since it’s unconscious.
The first topic discussed what that court rooms
across the nation and other countries can prove to be a key area for change,
one strategy is court monitoring. This represents the strong abilities of
ordinary groups or volunteer citizens of people have that can an effect on the
criminal-justice system. Research shows
that the monitoring can be effective in increasing convictions.
Why
monitor the courts?
MADD or mothers against drunk driving has formed
due to the victims and concerned citizens’ alarm at the leniency with which
drunk drivers were treated by the justice system. MADD Canada has a number of beliefs, for
example:
Eliminate the killing and maiming caused by
impaired driving
Driving is a privilege not a right
Impaired driving crashes are not accidents
MADD has a profound commitment to those affected by
an impaired driver. The topic of
impaired driving is a big problem and some members of the judiciary system
still believe that this form of driving is an unfortunate accident and are not seen as “true” criminals.
The topic of impaired
driving is what the police lay for the courts to prove the person guilty
of, but many of these charges are not followed through upon.
Statistics: 1999 Caroll
and Solomon’s review of 96-97 impaired driving in Ontario
Few impaired driving and causing bodily harm and
death were disposed of
A lot of those charges were dismissed or withdrawn
Significant no. of repeat offenders were sentenced
as first time offenders
Families of injured victims and victims themselves
suffer many losses, i.e. dreams, independence, physical and mental functions
and social contacts. I think there are
so many negative effects of driving while drunk, that I cannot understand why
people still do it. It is not very hard
to call a cab, sleep at someone else’s house or call someone to drive you home.
The
court-monitoring incentive
Court monitoring is an effective way to study how
impaired driving is dealt with in the courts; and is done by either reviewing
the case in or out of the room. The
actual volunteer’s presence in the courtroom shows an active commitment. Several
other organizations have also taken on the interest of court monitoring,
American Judicature Society (AJS), Texas Citizen Action Organization and Courtwatch of Hillsborough County represent programs
similar to MADD.
Penalties for
those found guilty of drunk driving include fines, jail time and suspended
license. There have been studies that
found court monitoring has had an effect of the length of jail time. Driving while impaired has been considered a
big threat to society and the monitoring of courts has proven to have positive
effects on these cases. Not only does it
increase the harshness what would be lighter penalties but it also gives
ordinary citizens power.
Components
of an effective court-monitoring program
Probst and
Lewis in 1987:
Comprehensive manual for those interested in court
monitoring
Planned approach using realistic design (i.e.
taking into account no. of available people and no. of courts)
Professional behavior and dress
Training manual ( do’s and
don’ts )
One of the main topics that the group first discussed was that aggressive
driving is a cultural norm that comes from parents and media. The education of driving begins as infants
while sitting in back of parents cars.
Drivers behave badly in different ways, depending on state and type of
car.
Survey:
Aggressiveness
Men report more aggressive driving than women, 5.5
for women and 6 for men.
Also men who drive family cars see themselves as
less aggressive, while men and women who drive trucks are more aggressive. The type is determined on how aggressive you
see yourself.
Excellence
as driver
Drivers love to underestimate errors and
overestimate their skills, on a sample scale of 1 to 10 men rate themselves as an 8 while women rate themselves as a 7. Also in the states of California and
Colorado, they reportedly rated themselves as better drivers. Also discussed was that two out of 3 drivers
see themselves as better drivers, but these are usually the people that are the
most aggressive.
Swearing
Research has shown that women out-swear and
out-cuss while behind the wheel, and women in Florida swear and cuss more than
any other state. Young drivers (15
to 24) swear the most, but as they get older (25 to 54), they tend to reduce
but women in vans swear and cuss less then
other drivers and senior drivers swear the least on the road.
Tailgating
The last item the group discussed was dangerous
tailgating. The top 5 states: Colorado,
Georgia, Michigan, Texas and Pennsylvania.
The lowest: New York, Florida, Ohio and California. I was a little surprised by these statistics
because I would have predicted the states to be the other way around,
especially New York. Young drivers also
admit to tailgating dangerously and the older drivers have less aggressive
driving.
Section 3: Team Presentations on Exercises By: Sheena Casaquit
(a)
Summarize the main ideas presented by the team.
(b) Describe what they did
and how they interpreted it.
(c) Describe some of the
ideas that needed a better justification or greater amplification.
(d) What was the success of
the approach they used?
(e) What improvements are
needed in the procedures or in the instructions?
(f) What are the
limitations of these types of exercises?
(g) Describe what happened
when you did some of the steps of the exercises
(a) TEE cards stands for Traffic Enforcement Education Cards, or
as Dr. James preferred, Traffic Emotion Education Cards. DrDriving
created them for law enforcement officers who make a traffic
stop for aggressive driving. The traffic stop can be seen as a window of opportunity
for delivering Aggressive Driving Prevention Information at a time when
the driver is focused to receive and listen to such information. The officer
chooses from one of several categories of aggressive driving information cards
and hands it to the driver. The purpose of TEE cards is to build the driver’s
awareness of what the law considers aggressive and which behaviors were
observed by the officer. The officer than decided whether or
not to issue out a citation.
The design of TEE cards is
a combination of scientific knowledge, instructional design, and creative or
artistic presentation. Although they come in all shapes and sizes, there is one
aspect that remains stable, which is their content. The card includes an
aggressive-driving checklist of violations the officer observed, tips to
prevent aggressive driving and road rage and a self-survey that measures a
motorist’s road rage tendencies.
Some educational objectives for TEE cards are:
To serve as a reminder and
warning at a time the§ driver is focused on the officer
To give drivers a feedback
assessment on their§ mistakes
To point out emotionally
intelligent alternatives§ to aggressive driving
To provide facts and statistics
about the§
consequences of aggressive driving
To strengthen a driver’s sense
of social§
responsibility to other drivers
TEE cards express and
promote DrDriving’s approach called Driving
Psychology. This is the idea that driving habits occur in three domains:
emotions, thoughts, and sensory-motor actions. These three domains must work
together in order to be effective. Each card stands as a true mini-lesson that
takes into account three types of behavioral objectives: affective (regarding
attitude, responsibility, emotions, alertness),
cognitive (involving knowledge, judgment, emotional intelligence), and sensori-motor (competence in vision and vehicle control).
Each TEE card is an inner
power tool. When you study one TEE card, you’re building one block in your
Driving Psychology. The more TEE cards you study, the more building blocks you
have for your knowledge of driving psychology. This is the knowledge that you
need for traffic emotions education. Everyone benefits when drivers change
their hostile emotions and cultivate positive and supportive emotions.
As Dr. James said, “It’s
learning how to deal with it in a better, more positive way than beating the
traffic.” Police Sgt. Robert Lung said the Honolulu Police Department is
looking into handing out brochures with driving tips and ways to control road
rage, but not specifically the TEE card. He notes that the most ticketed
drivers will probably rip up any literature they receive, or not read it at
all. If it does however reach a few of them, it is worth the shot. The TEE
cards are a good step in the right direction.
(b) For this exercise the team was told to study
DrDriving’s TEE cares at http://drdriving.org/legislation/teecards.html.
They had to take notes in order to be able to explain what TEE cards were. The
team then identified some driving psychology principles that motivated each
component of the TEE cards and be able to discuss how TEE cards can be used for
driver improvement and driver instruction. The next step for them was to select
one TEE card from those on the site and see how their friends could relate to
it. They were to ride with their friend(s) so that they could practice the
principles to the driver’s traffic emotions and see how successful they were in
applying the principles to themselves. And last but not least, the team
presented the class with some samples of the TEE cards and found out by a show
of hands how many students would consider each card relevant to themselves or
to drivers they know.
This team interpreted the
TEE cards to be a good step in the right direction. They emphasized the
importance of driver education in emotional intelligence and the outcomes that
could occur without it. It is essential for police officers to take every
chance as a window of opportunity to reach out to those in need. Making a
traffic stop could allow them to deliver aggressive driving prevention
information in hopes to decrease the occurrence of future endeavors.
(c) The team had a dilemma with providing
the class with actual TEE cards. They prepared for a presentation based on what
they found to be TEE cards, however, only turned out to be real life stories
that were based on the cards. This predicament brought confusion to the class
because they weren’t able to provide the class with an actual card. On a good
note, Dr. James agreed that the site was a bit confusing and the TEE cards were
hard to point out. With this in mind, the TEE cards needed a better
justification or greater amplification because although the team provided us
with what it consisted of and a background on it, the class wasn’t able to see
a hard copy of it.
(d) The team was successful in their approach to
discuss the concept behind TEE cards. They went into detail about what the
cards consisted of and possible educational objectives for them. The most
successful approach that they used was linking the TEE cards to real life
situations. This provided insight to society around us here in Hawaii. As
mentioned earlier, the team had a dilemma with providing the class with actual
samples of TEE cards since the site was a bit misleading. When Dr. James went
over to the members to try to pin point the problem and exact location of the
TEE cards, the members could have easily lost focus but instead tried their
best to continue on with their presentation. They tried to be as professional as
possible.
(e) The only improvement needed in the
procedures or in the instructions would be the emphasis on where the actual TEE
card samples were located. The site proved to be very misleading therefore; the
team had difficulty providing the class with samples of the cards.
(f) The limitations of this type of
exercise would be that there is no guarantee to have the cooperation of all
drivers to participate in the TEE card approach. Although it is a good step in
the right direction, as police Sgt. Robert Lung states, “
most ticketed drivers will probably rip up any literature they receive,
or not read it at all. I believe that more research needs to be conducted in
the possible outcomes of this concept before implementing the procedure in
hopes to keep budgets manageable.
(g) When I first read about what TEE cards were, my initial reactions were nothing but good thoughts. I
really believed that this would be a great idea. Aggressive drivers need to be
offered the opportunity to learn more about their behavior and about coping
strategies rather than just be cited with a ticket. I believe that paying your
way out of a mistake will only keep the problem stable if not increase it even
more. TEE cards are a great way to really feed drivers with traffic emotional
education tips on how to control their road rage.
When I discussed the idea
of the concept behind TEE cards with my friends, they were interested in the
approach at first but later questioned the outcome. Like me, they believed that
the cards were a great idea and a good step in the right direction however;
they were hesitant on the cooperation by drivers. Many of them believed that
drivers being stopped for a traffic violation are outraged and just want the
situation to be over with. Most times they will pretend to be interested in the
TEE card provided by the officer but later disregard the information.
Section 4: Annotated Web Links
By: Abigail Huliganga, Ashlee Matsui & Sheena Casaquit
1. Driver Aggression:
The role of personality, Social characteristics, Risk and Motivation
This web link first looks at aggression and
how it relates to driving. It also
examines the motives of aggressive drivers and the different extremes that
these types of drivers take. It also
provides possible suggestions on how to cope with aggressive driving.
2. Women Drivers? They’re Safer than
Men.
This web link looks at the stereotype that
women drivers are worse than men, but according to this site, they are safer
drivers. The article states that males
have 77 percent higher risk of dying in a car accident than women.
This web link takes a look into
tailgating. It describes how it is
dangerous on the roads and even provides tips on how to handle someone who may
be tailgating you on the road. It also
has three linked articles in which you can find out more information about
tailgating.
This article looks at the safest drivers in
the United States based on the “Allstate America’s Best Driver Reports”. In this article, South Dakota is considered
the safest. The web link also looks at
the likelihood of drivers in America’s 200 largest cities on how they would
experience vehicle collision compared to the national average.
Alcohol related accidents kills someone
every 31 minutes and non-fatally hurts someone every 2 minutes. But there are measures that can be taken to
better improve these high numbers. In
2005 almost 17, 000 people died from alcohol related incidents.
6. The problems
and solutions of alcohol
This
site provides the problems, facts and solutions to drinking and driving. It also states that every death and injury
that is alcohol related is totally preventable if the driver was responsible
and did not get behind the wheel. It
also gives a link to a bar exam which tests your knowledge about alcohol.
This is the official site for the mothers
against drunk driving, where it discusses statistics, facts and other important
information. There are also links to get
involved with the program for concern citizens as well as parents.
8.
Finding a lawyer if you get a DUI
I thought this site was interesting because
it does show that so many people are getting caught for DUI’s that a site just
for lawyers came about. When you first
look at the site, they go by your state you got the ticket and so fourth.
This is a site all about
traffic tickets. This section provides you with information and state-specific
resources on traffic violations, fighting a ticket, vehicle stops, and much
more. I found this site to be relevant to the concept behind TEE cards. TEE
cards are a way to increase emotional intelligence in regards to aggressive
driving in the form of cards that officers would hand out in place or alongside
a traffic citation. I believe that paying your way out of a mistake doesn’t get
the point across.
10. Avoid Aggressive Driving
Situations Checklist
This is a site provided by
printablechecklist.com. It contains questions that every driver should be able
to check off before getting behind the wheel of their automobile in hopes to
decrease the occurrence of aggressive driving. There are three sections that
include stay calm behind the wheel, protect yourself
from aggressive driving, and take action! You can prevent aggressive driving.
Each sub-section focuses on behaviors that should be paid attention to.