Report 2:
My Understanding
of Driving Psychology
By Anne Lorraine
Aquino
Instructions for
this report are at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy21/409a-g21-report2.htm
Question 1: 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/leonpsy21/409a-g21-lecture-notes.htm#Charts Consult the article from which the Tables were taken. Using your own words, describe the three behavioral domains and levels of a driver (nine cells). 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. Make up a "driving personality makeover" plan for yourself (or another driver you know well). Discuss the problems you anticipate in carrying out such a plan successfully.
There are three domains of driving behavior and they are hostile feelings, which is the driver’s affective self, biased thoughts, which is the driver’s cognitive self, and the aggressive actions, which is the driver’s sensorimotor self. The driver’s affective self controls the reaction or emotion and incentive the driver maintains while on the road. The cognitive self controls the judgments, opinions, and driver’s way of thinking while on the road. The sensorimotor self controls the consciousness, awareness, and the actions we present while on the road.
The nine zones or cells of a possible driver behavior make up the three domains and the three levels. The habits are presented from bottom up to indicate that habits are built on top of habits. The higher it goes, the later we experience them. Zones 1 through 9 represents the skills (+), and zones 10 through 18 represents the errors (-). Each level has 3 domains. In level 1, driving behavior is labeled “Proficiency”, level 2 is labeled “Safety”, and level 3 is labeled “Responsibility”.
In level 1, the focus is staying calm and alert (affective proficiency), being aware of your surroundings (cognitive proficiency), and organizing your senses to prevent from crashing (sensorimotor proficiency). Level 2 focuses on avoiding trouble (affective safety), identifying problems and solving them (cognitive safety), and leading to practical acts (sensorimotor safety). Lastly, level 3 focuses on being responsible for others (affective responsibility), establishing prosocial rather than antisocial thoughts (cognitive responsibility), and being either happy or stressed out while driving (sensorimotor responsibility).
This may be something not to be proud about, but the only skill that I could think of while I am driving would be letting people cut or go in front of me. This has happened numerous times, and my “affective self” in this situation would be, “I have to be more attentive in this area. Other drivers who don’t usually use their signals can just easily cut in front of me, and if I am not paying attention, I would get into an accident, and this would definitely involve money.” My “cognitive self” in this situation would be, “This driver looks like he or she has been trying to cut in every little space he or she sees. He or she must be in a hurry. Maybe there is something really important going on or even worse, it could be an emergency. I better let this person get in front of me.” My “sensorimotor self” in this situation would be me doing the hand motion, letting the other driver know that he or she can get in front of me. I usually do this by motioning my hand towards the space I am leaving for that particular driver.
Now, I could think of several examples of my error in my driving behavior. A good illustration would be of a driver switching lanes without paying attention because they are either on the phone or doing something else. My “affective self” in this situation would be, “I want to show that driver how pissed he or she is making me.” My “cognitive self” in this situation would be, “Drivers like that shouldn’t be on the road driving because they are endangering so much lives. They would only learn if and only if they get into an accident while they are not paying attention on the road.” My “sensorimotor self” in this situation would be me yelling at the driver saying “You f***ing a**hole why don’t you pay attention to the freaking road and watch where the hell you are going!!!” and at the same time doing some mean hand gestures. Knowing myself too well, I would make it a point that the other driver would be able to see me.
With all these being said, I unquestionably require a driving personality makeover. There are two stages in doing this. The first stage would be avoiding being an aggressive driver and the second stage would be becoming a supportive driver. In these two stages we also will find the three domains.
My affective level for the first stage should be defeating my conflict to change. By doing this, I have to lessen my urges of retaliating and being angry, be open minded to all suggestions when it comes to my driving habits, and mainly just being kind to strangers, and treating everyone on the road equally. My cognitive level should be gaining knowledge to perform balanced examination of traffic occurrences. I have to do this by not thinking that it’s always the other driver’s fault and never my fault, and looking at the situation on both sides and not be biased about it. Lastly for the first stage, my sensorimotor level would be conducting out civil manners. Smiling, waving, signaling, not yelling at every petty things, no aggressive acts, are just a few things I can think of by doing this.
Now for the second stage, which is becoming a supportive driver, my affective level would be maintaining to be supportive towards other drivers. This can be done by me by being forgiving, being responsible, not being offended when given advices, and just plainly feeling good about being kind to other drivers. For the cognitive level, I should evaluate driving circumstances in an objective manner. Knowing my flaws in driving and practicing on how not to do these flaws is a good start on doing this level. Lastly for the sensorimotor level, I have to act out and behave in a cooperative manner. I have to be more helpful, anticipate what other drivers need, and to focus on just having a good time while driving.
This driving personality makeover wouldn’t be simple to actually perform it as to how simple it is when planning it. The problem that I would expect while trying to accomplish this would be disciplining myself. Practicing it whenever I get a chance would probably make it easier for me to carry out the plan accordingly. Doing it often should give me a hang of it, and once I get the hang of it, I would absolutely be doing it nonchalantly.
Question 2: Give a brief review of our two textbooks: Road Rage and Aggressive Driving (James and Nahl), and Driving Lessons: Exploring Systems That Make Traffic Safer (Peter Rothe, Editor). The reviews should be between 3 and 6 paragraphs for each text. Select one Chapter from each text and give a summary of it. Discuss in what way will these ideas contribute to society's driving problems.
Road Rage and Aggressive Driving by Dr. James and Dr. Nahl is a book about having and experiencing road rage, which is socially growing as the years go by. Drivers are familiar with this situation because of the aggressiveness they have experienced from either the media or from their parents. The book also presents instructions in preventing aggression on highway by reinstating courteousness and security on our roads.
This book was a remarkable one. My consciousness about being aggressive while driving has increased immensely and I have been noticing more of my flaws as I drive from one place to another. It is quite difficult to apply the concepts learned through this book because it isn’t automatically learned. Being aggressive has been in me fairly long enough in a way that it would take some time to unlearn what has been learned throughout the years.
I would recommend this textbook to all the drivers who would want to change their ways of driving, especially those who experience aggression in every aspect of life. It is a wake up call to all those road rage drivers and maybe they would learn more about civility and emotional intelligence in highways.
Chapter 8 discussed about supportive driving, which focused on assisting drivers’ attempts to achieve what they want instead of competing against them. This will help alleviate traffic by sympathizing with the other drivers. If someone tries to pass you, keep your speed steady and avoid accelerating in order not to interfere. By accelerating, the other car will slow down, and would cause the other car behind it to slow down, which would be a domino effect, which would slow the traffic down even more.
Driving Lessons: Exploring Systems That Make Traffic Safer by Peter Rothe is a book about compilations of articles written by speakers from around the world who shared their messages about challenging traditional roles and thinking, and building new knowledge by sampling current research in multiple disciplines. The articles written on this book promote debate and support interference or avoidance strategies, hoping to open new doors to common issues and recommending ways to address new issues.
This book was fascinating but more complicated to comprehend compared to Road Rage and Aggressive Driving book. It has broadened my knowledge concerning myself behind the wheel. It has never occurred to me that driving is actually a social act that depends on our obedience to traffic rules. When these rules are not abided, injury, loss, or even death may be the outcome.
I would recommend this book to those drivers who always break traffic rules. Traffic injuries and fatalities continue to increase every year and this is taking place due to those defiant and rebellious drivers. Maybe reading this book would make them better drivers and eventually be able to follow traffic rules to lessen injuries, loss, or even death.
Chapter 6 deals with rural driving versus urban driving. They differ in social behaviors, community and cultural values, and their views on risk and temperaments. They defined everyday reality differently. Being aware of these differences would help a driver realize that not everyone should be treated alike in a highway. Everyone is just mainly different from one another. It could be due to from where a person is originally from. A good example from this chapter would be about security. An urban driver would tend to lock the car and home and wear seatbelt as to a rural driver who would neither lock the car nor their home and wouldn’t wear a seatbelt.
Question 3: Discuss
these two Web sites: drivers.com vs. drdriving.org What are their main differences?
Be sure to consider at least these areas: articles, newsletters, letters,
style, probable audience, public relations or policy, advertising, size,
ranking.
These two websites are similar in some way because of their content concerning drivers and driving, although I can see more of their differences. As for the style, DrDriving.org has more subject matter on its first page. Everything is laid out flatly right when you type in the URL address. All you have to do is scroll down to read all the information. There are links where you have to click in order for you to read more on that particular subject, but most of it is on that same page. For Drivers.com, you don’t have to scroll down to see the whole substance. There are links where you can click and read the rest of the material. Not everything is laid out flatly on its first page.
Second difference I have noticed would be the articles. In DrDriving.org, road rage is the main focus way more than anything else. It informed readers on how to become more subtle and calm whenever on the road. In Drivers.com, the substance is more on the vague side. It didn’t really focus on anything in particular like how the other website did. Also on this website, there is a link where you can click for more information on computer drivers, which is not found in DrDriving.org.
The last dissimilarity that I have noticed would be the advertising. In Drivers.com, you can submit a link and advertise with the website. You can order advertising by contacting them by submitting their self-submission form and paying for it by using either using your mastercard or visa. In DrDriving.org, I couldn’t find any links that would lead me to any advertising information. All that was offered in this site was the driving psychology issues that were posted for the readers’ interest and that everything is free for everyone’s personal use.
Question 5: 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
Consult the article from which the Table was taken. 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. Discuss why driving is such a big problem in all
societies and why no effective solutions have yet been found for them. Discuss
the solutions offered by Dr. Leon James (DrDriving). What likelihood is there
that his approach will be adopted? Explain.
Table 5 Emotionally Intelligent Driver Personality Skills
|
Driver Competence Skills |
Aggressive |
Supportive |
|
Not |
Emotionally |
|
|
1. Focusing on self vs. blaming others or the situation |
"This traffic is wasting my
time. Don’t these drivers know how to
drive? They’re driving too slow for
me." |
"I’m feeling very
intolerant today. Everything seems to piss me off." |
|
2. Understanding how feelings and thoughts act together |
|
"I feel pissed, irritated,
and extremely mad when I think about what could have happened." |
|
3. Realizing that anger is something we choose vs. thinking it is provoked |
"I hate it when they do
that to me. It just pisses me
off." |
"I let myself get affected and
be pissed when they do that." |
|
4. Being concerned about consequences vs. giving in to impulse |
"I’m going let this driver
know how I feel by doing to him whatever he did to me." |
"I wouldn’t want to
aggravate the situation. It is not
worth it." |
|
5. Showing respect for others and their rights vs. thinking
only of oneself |
|
|
|
6. Accepting traffic as collective team work vs. seeing it as
individual competition |
"I need to get ahead of
everyone especially these slow people.
It’s all about who gets to their destination the fastest." |
"I try to go with the flow
of the traffic and be considerate with the other drivers knowing that my
actions can cause traffic." |
|
7. Recognizing the diversity of drivers and their needs and
styles vs. blaming them for what they choose to do |
"This driver is just so
dumb that she’d rather put make up while driving and stare at herself in the
mirror and not pay attention to the road." |
"I need to be cautious around
these kind of drivers because they are not fully paying attention to the
road." |
|
8. Practicing positive role models vs. negative |
"Why the heck are you going
minimum speed when you are in the fast lane?
That’s it! I am tailgating you
till you get out of my way!" |
"This driver obviously is
still in the speed limit and I should respect the driver for that. Maybe I can switch lanes, or better yet
practice the act of being patient." |
|
9. Learning to inhibit the impulse to criticize by
developing a sense of driving humor |
"I can’t stand drivers who
slow down when there’s a slight curve in the freeway especially when there
are no cars in front of them." |
"I get really frustrated
with these kind of drivers but I’ll try to slow down. Maybe they just started driving. I was once like that." |
|
10. Taking driving seriously by becoming aware of one’s mistakes and correcting
them |
"I am the best driver out
of all my friends. I have a clean record, no tickets or whatsoever. Just a few accidents here and there." |
"I try to observe my flaws
when I drive especially my attitude towards aggression. It makes me realize that I still have a
lot to learn." |
Driving is such a big problem in all societies because people let their emotions take place especially on the road. Traffic is inevitable and this causes drivers to react to what they see and feel. This is when most of the aggression and irritation takes place. Drivers need to learn more about emotional intelligence in order to lessen traffic chaos. There have been multiple solutions to alleviate this situation but none so far was effective. It is effortless to formulate laws and regulations but would actually be complex to have it actually done.
Dr. Leon James suggested numerous solutions in his website. These are mostly common sense, I should say,
but are still difficult to follow especially if someone couldn’t control his or
her emotions while driving. It is easy
to learn how to drive and adapt being aggressive from the media and our
parents, but this is hard to unlearn.
It would actually take time to unlearn what we have learned over the
past years. We can’t apply what we have
learned in class automatically. It will
take time. As a conclusion, his
approach to these dilemmas will be adopted eventually as we practice the
routines every time we have a chance to experience traffic or road rage.
Question 7: Our textbook Road Rage and Aggressive Driving has exercises in several chapters. Do the following four exercises: (a) Exercise on scenario analysis on p. 205; (b) Exercise on acting as-if on p.128; (c) Exercise on self-assessment on p. 134; and (d) Checklist of your road rage tendency on p. 40. What were your reactions to the exercises? Discuss how these exercises help you to become more aware of yourself as a driver. Do some of the exercises with another driver you know. How do they help you understand some principles of driving psychology?
Exercise A, B, C, and D made me realize how badly I have let aggressiveness take over when I am driving. It didn’t seem as bad as how it is now because I haven’t really thought about it as much and just the fact that I haven’t evaluated my driving behavior. My imperfection in driving or my road rage hasn’t occurred to me as much as how it did after answering all the questions.
Answering all the questions was a reality check for me because it was actually my first time assessing my own self in the way I drive. In Exercise D, I got 16 yes’ and 4 no’s, and it says that my road rage is out of control. I never wrote down any of my best driving traits nor my worst driving traits, but after answering Exercise C, I have noticed that my worst traits outweigh my best traits for both myself and to my passenger. As for Exercise B, this I think was the hardest because supportive driving doesn’t come to me naturally after I have been driving with so much aggressiveness in me. It will take time for me to apply this. Lastly, for Exercise A, things would’ve been much better if the kids went straight home after losing the address and by not aggravating the situation by slowing down.
These exercises have made me realize and become more aware on how extreme my driving habits have become. Exercise C struck me the most out of all the exercises. Seeing my worst traits in driving compared to my best traits in driving in writing astonished me. I didn’t realize how many terrible habits I have compared to my decent ones. Hearing comments from my passengers didn’t strike me as much because I was used to these but when I saw these comments in writing, I was just taken aback.
Some of the exercises needed some help from another driver’s perspective. Hearing and seeing what they had to say about my way of driving was certainly useful because they in fact made it easier for me to become more conscious about my driving habits. Emotional intelligence is what they all said I needed to practice.
ADVICE TO FUTURE GENERATIONS
This class is fairly easy. The main thing is for you to come to class regularly and read the required readings. Keeping yourself posted with all the due dates and doing work in time or ahead of time instead of procrastinating would also facilitate you to keep up with the pace with the rest of the students in the class. Reading all the requirements (e.g. syllabus, online notes, etc.) every week would also assist you in doing some of your work like your oral presentation, as he updates it once in a while.
Everything discussed in class are facts that you wouldn’t have thought about. There are 42,000 deaths a year, 6.5 million major hospital injuries per year, and a 250 billion estimated cost alone in US from all of these predicaments. Taking this class, my knowledge has been exceptionally broadened as to what I thought I already have known. Petty actions we do while driving, as we all may think, affect other people’s lives immensely. Keeping yourself in check, studying emotional intelligence, being civil in every aspect, and taking responsibilities for your own actions would undoubtedly alleviate disasters on highways.
Class Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy21/classhome-g21.htm
My Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/409af2004/aquino/409a-g21-report2.htm