Report 1
Gender Differences In Driving:
Good Girls and Bad Boys?!
By: Carlene Yee
G10, Psy 409B

Instructions for this report

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 Table of Contents
Cara Lucey's Report Review
Tami Hattori's Report on Gender Differences
Response to Email Discussions by:
Ryan Shintani
Brandi Ashby
Mary Elizabeth Pacheco
Wilfred Lee
Ryan Shintani
My reaction and feelings
Results from ERIC and Uncover
Christine Tomooka's Report
Craig Kawamura's Report
Advice for future Generations
 

Cara Lucey's Report, G6

    This person's report was very thorough.  She wrote this report with the assumption that the person reading it has no previous knowledge of psychology.  She explicitly explains all terms in very simple terms.  A great deal of her report is spent giving definitions for various terms like reliability, validity, norms, and stereotypes.  Overall, her report is not very technical, but very detailed.
 

    This student starts her report with norms, stereotypes, and expections of drivers according to their gender.  She lists a few of these concerns that have been talked about in the classroom.  A few to mention are that men tend to not ask for directions when they are lost, and women rather have their male counterparts drive.  She then goes into more detail about norms, stereotypes, and expections followed with emaotional stories.
 

    She also cites several web sites for references such as the AAA foundations for traffic safety and C. Machida's report on gender differences.  She states at the end of this section that the goal of her report is to  support her theory that men are trying to compensate for their loss of control by criticizing women.  She states that some of these differences are a result of women becoming more independent.  The next couple of sections in her report talk about the methods and reliability v.s. validity.  She describes the details of the questionnaire, and some of the results.  She also provides a link to her table of raw data  instead of displaying it within her report.
 

    This student's report goes into further detail about what could be done to improve this report if done by future generations.  She adds that reliability and validity are a big issue when using this questionnaire, because of the moods and thoughts affecting the people at the time of driving and/or filling out the questionnaire.  She also writes about the implications that this has in traffic psychology.  She mentions that so many aggressive driving behaviors have become the norm in society, and part of this is a result of classical conditioning from her previous social psychology class.
 

    There is just so much information listed in this report.  It is impressive for the amount of detail, but the report does not fully answer the questions being asked.  She gives more reasons for aggressive driving behaviors than gender differences in driving beahaviors.
 

Tami Hattori's Report, G8
 

    This report was very different from Lucey's report.  The format that she took is something that is more similar to the one that I have to do for this report, because she had to research in ERIC and Uncover as well as Usenet and the web.  This was a really detailed and technical report which I really enjoyed.  I learned a lot from this report, and will be able to use it to reference my own.  I really like her writing style, because it is professional.
 

    This report also starts off with a review of Cara Lucey's report on gender differences in driving.  She also then summarizes the email posting of several G7 students.  The same process that I will also proceed through.  Her ability to analyze these reports and postings is very impressive.  Her writing skills were further shown off in her summary of results from the Usenet and the Web.  She reviews three articles done by a student, Dr. Driving, and a writer for a magazine.  And finally at the end of her report, she posts two article abstracts that she found through ERIC and Uncover.
 

    This report was very well done.  I enjoyed reading it, because it is similar to this report.  I will be able to use some of her work to aide me in my research as I move further into this report.  The only thing I found to be extemely irritating is that she sis not put her name at the top of her report, and nor did she anchor any part of her report.  This made it difficult to move back and forth between sections.

Review of Email Discussions
 

Ryan Shintani

    This email posting by Mr. Shintani expresses that in order for a difference in gender driving to be established, all the different biases need to be examined.  He mentions several biases that may arise in such a study such as self-actualization with men and women, and geographical biases.  He suggests that a "genderless" survey be created to really study this issue.
 

    I am not really sure how a "genderless" survey could be created to study gender issues in driving.  Of course there will always be participants that are not truthful.  These biases that he mentions are real issues, but they do not necessarily stop a study like this from happening.  These biases that he mentions deal more with the methodology of the study rather than the real issue of the study.  There isn't a way to "fool proof" a study against biases such as lying and geographical boundaries.   These issues depend on the sampling methods taken, and not the actual subject.
 

Brandi Ashby

    The feel from this posting written by Brandi Ashby is of uncertainty.  She states that "people that you don't expect to be aggressive drivers are the ones that you most need to be concerned about".  This does not give any feedback whether these drivers are more liekly to be women or men.  In her next statement, she says that "I suppose" male drivers are more agressive, but she also mentions that this does not necessarily  make women non-aggressive.  She then states that she read in an article that women are becoming more aggressive drivers.

    This posting did not have much content.  There are no firm stances on this issue by this person.  She read in an article that women are becoming more agressive drivers, but does not comment on this article, or how she reacted and feels about it.  One issue that arises with this posting is the way that other people perceive women drivers.

Mary Elizabeth Pacheco

    This posting written by Mary Pacheco repeatedly mentions her inexperience with this issue.  She does take the assumption that male drivers are more aggressive behind the wheel, because of previous studies done on the social norms of men. Admitting that she does not know enough about the subject, she commits to researching more into this topic and recommends that others do the same.

    A highly relevant point that this student mentions is that men are typically more aggressive than women in everyday life.  I think this fact is important when discussing differences with gender while driving.

Wilfred Lee

    This student starts his posting with a question that could be taken sarcastically.  He asks if there are differences in driving according to gender.  My intepretation of this is that he assumes that both men and women drive just as well or badly as each other.  He then mentions this in his next statements.
 

    He also mentions that trying to figure out who makes better drivers distracts from solving the problem.  He says that figuring out who is a worse driver only points the finger instead of constructively solving the problem of aggressive driving.
 

    Mr. Lee brings up a very good point that there might not even be a difference between the ways that men and women drive.  It's a suggestion that both men and women have the same capabilities to be good or bad driver.  I really agree that researching gender differences may not have much constructive value.  After all, if there is so much confusion over this issue could it be that the difference between the driving patterns of men and women are slight?

Ryan Shintani

     Mr. Shintani's posting is in response to someone's (not a prt of the class) posting that it is prople of ethnic backgrounds, women and the elderly that make the worst type of drivers.  Mr. Shintani's report is probably written out of rage and anger, because he calls this person a racist, sexist, and a disciminate of elderly.  He goes on to mention that this person is rationalizing for his own aggressive style of driving, and that he probably regularly flips people off.
 

    This posting is interesting, because it brings up the point that people always are going to point the finger at others.  They put up all sorts of defense mechanisms to protect themselves from admititng that they are bad drivers.  It also shows that people that are not informed make uneducated remarks and scapegoat certain groups of people.
 

My Reaction and Feelings

    I never really thought about gender differences in driving.  I did notice the differences in the way that both my parents drove when I was a child.  My Mom was very not very aggressive.  She was more defensive, with a few exceptions.  She eventually got more and more aggressive over the years as traffic got worse.  This type of aggressive driving would be more in the like of forcing her way into a lane when changing lanes.  She would never swear orsay bad things about the other driver.  She would just scream when any acts of aggression were directed towards her.

    On the other side, my Dad was very aggressive and then slowly turned more passive aggressive.  He would speed and tailgate and call other drivers names as well as criticize their driving.  He would cut in and out of lanes and stop really close to cars in front of him.  Slowly I saw a difference in his driving, especially after we moved from Kaneohe to Makiki.  He always drove in the right lane, and would drive more slowly.  He remained more calm for longer periods of time.  He did not retaliate by tailgating anymore, and he was more aware of putting on his blinker when changing lanes and turning.  One thing that never changed was the rolling stops.  He would never come to a full and complete stop.

    I can't say that I was really influenced by my parents, but I think I picked up more of my dad's aggressive habits.  Once I had my liscence, I was highly impatient.  I would speed and stop really close to the person in front of me, an even use my horn more often.I admit I was addicted to speed. I wanted to see how fast I could go, how fast I could pull put of driveways, and how how fast I could pull into a parking space.  I was a maniac driver.  I was probably influenced by my peers, movies, and television most of all.  I wanted to be the most efficient driver.  I thought if everyone would just move along we wouldn't have to use our brakes, and there wouldn't be any traffic.

    After reading this web site on gender differences in communication on line and otherwise, I realized how the patterns both my Mom and Dad followed are a result of scientific reasearch.  Their behavior has been documented as typical where the man is more aggressive and assertive with their communication and women are more passive and polite.  I agree with this web site to some degree.  It says that the theory behind women acting the way they do is to perpetuate their oppression.  I do not agree with this theory, but i do agree with theie observation that women are not as aggressive as men.

Results from Eric Database

     Gilligan, C. & Attanucci, J. Two moral orientations: gender differences and similarities. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly. 1988,
     34(3), 223-237.

       The study evaluated the discussions of males and females dealing with moral conflicts. The purpose was to see whether
     they showed signs of using the justice and care perspective, and whether there was any relationship between gender and
     moral orientation. Findings showed that although some gender differences exist, both knew and use the justice and care
     perspective in their morals.

     Hype, J. How large are gender differences in aggression? A developmental meta-analysis. Developmental Psychology.
     1984, 20(4),722-736.

     Nag, Ski Hung; And Others";. Information Seeking Triggered by Age.; "International Journal of Aging and Human
     Development; v33 n4 p269-77 1991"; .

     This study asked college students what information drivers (aged 16 to 91) involved in traffic accident would need for
     assigning accident responsibility. This study found that ageism information seeking across life span, independent of driver
     gender, participant age, and participant gender. Participants would ask younger drivers about driving conduct (drinking,
     speeding) and older drivers about capacity for driving (mental competence, vision, health).

        Termini, Katherine A.; Beck, Kenneth H.. Adolescent Gender Differences in Alcohol Problem Behaviors and the
     Social Contexts of Drinking. Journal of School Health; v66 n8 p299-304 Cot 1996 .

     Hernandez, A.C.R., Newcomer, M.D., Rabbi, J. Types of Drunk Driving Intervention: Prevalence, Success and
     Gender. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, JUL. 01 1995, v 56, p. 408.

    Hare, N., Field, J., & Quirked, B. Gender differences and areas of common concern in the driving behaviors and
     attitudes of adolescents. Journal of Safety Research. 1996, 27(3),163.

     Bear, G. & Ryas, G. Relational aggression and peer relations: gender and developmental issues. Merrill-Palmer
     Quarterly. 1997, 43(1),87-106.

Christine Tomooka's Report

    This person's report was on the stereotypes of women drivers and the reasons for their perpetuation.  She starts off with some stereotypes of women in general.  It was thought that women were not able to handle stressful situations and make decisions well under pressure.  These reasons or excuses were used to keep a women at home, where she should be, doing all the cleaning.   She then goes on to the history of women drivers.  She reports that driving was limited to the wealthy at first.  They could only drive a certain type of car, because they were considered subordinates.  She also mentions that the car was not seen as being very feminine, and thus assisted in the separation between women and driving.  After some extensive research, she discovered that negative stereotypes of women drivers were actually ceated to "keep women in their place".

Craig Kawamura's Report

    Craig's report is the only one that I found that did the same subject as me.  His report is very similar to mine, because we have to follow the same format.  He has really neat link text and has organized his report much better than mine.  He organizes it in a way that is easier to read than mine.  His report is also much shorter than mine.  It looks like he knew what he was doing more so than me.

Advice for Future Generations

    Okay if you want to do a report on this subject, be prepared to do a lot of work.  This report involves a lot of research and time on the internet.  So please, please, please...Start Early!!! This report is more research than reporting.  If you like to give your opinion, then this report is not for you.  If you like to just report on what other people have researched, then this is the subject for you.  Remember Do not wait til the last minute to do your report!!!

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