I enjoyed Eric's report because it was easy to read in terms of  fonts and color selection.  I did feel, however, that his report was a little boring to look at.  The font was black with a white background and the paragraphs and titles were very sterile looking.   He did a thorough search through Journal database searches, web searches, generational searches, and through the Rothe textbook.  I had an even easier time reading through his report because every subject was categorized and titled so simply.  I felt that his report was very short and still lacking of material, though. 

 
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Tamar's report was a little more pleasing to the eye than Eric's was, but actually the grey text was difficult to read against the colored background.  Also, the font she chose was not very easy to read.  There is just no pleasing me.  She also included searches through the Journal database, the web, and the Rothe textbook but I did not feel that her report was thorough enough, either.  
 

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Test Questionnaire by Cara Lucey 
 

This test questionnaire was made by a student in Dr. James 459, G6 as a part of her report.  The questionnaire consisted of miscellaneous statements that you answer yes or no to.  This questionnaire was very short and concise.  I didn't like or agree with all of her choices for criteria of aggressive driving, but I did enjoy that it was simple to read and simple to answer.  It was very straight to the point and didn't confuse readers.  
 

Dr Driving's Test Yourself Toolkit Module 2 Your Driving Personality 
 

This test serves as a demo illustrating how self tests can operate to assess your driving personality.  The items for this version are based on the full classified inventory of the nine zones of driving skills.  I liked that Dr. Driving's test yourself toolkit was very thorough.  It helped me understand all of the criteria because it was broken down into the different areas.  Affective Safety Issues, Cognitive Safety Issues, Sensorimotor Safety Issues, Affective Self-control and responsibility issues, Cognitive self control and responsibility issues, and Sensorimotor self control and responsibility issues.   The survey was pretty lengthy, howver, and I thought some participants might get bored or tired of filling it out. 
 

Are you an aggressive driver? 
 

This August 19-28 poll by EPIC/M-R-A of Lansing, Michigan, was based on a driver stress test developed by Dr. John Larson who leads the Institute for Stress Medicine in Norwalk, Connecticut.  It asks 40 questions and you reply with a Always, Often, Sometimes, or Never.  I enjoyed this particular survey because the questions were very short.  However, there were a lot of them.  It was interesting how the questions were grouped in similar sections in terms of anger, impatientness, competition, and violence.  The questions also seemed to go in order of aggressive degrees.  From the lesser aggressive actions to the violent ones.  I also felt that the always and never selections were too extreme and therefore unnecessary.  Very rarely are you going to be able to say that you have always or never done something.  Questions  were a little repetitive which I felt may bore the participants, but all in all I enjoyed this survey.   

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Age: _______ 

#years driving ______ 

Please answer True or False. 

1.  I get impatient at stoplights.    T  F 

2.  If I don't drive aggressively, other drivers will take advantage of my passivity.   T   F 

3.  I fantasize about using guns and blowing up cars.   T    F 

4.  I feel gratified by the sense of power and competition I experience during driving.  T    F 

5.  I feel very upset when people stop in hallways to talk blocking the way.   T    F 

6.  When I am very upset and at the wheel, I drive much more recklessly.  T   F 

7.  I compete with or challenge other drivers on the road.  T   F 

8.  I cannot tolerate bad drivers and try to punish them.  T   F 

9.  I tailgate slow drivers on purpose to let them know I am upset at them.  T   F 

10. When I am on the road, I am in a rush trying to get to my destination in the quickest time even  
       when I am not under a time constraint.  T   F 

11.  I am usually not a violent or hostile person, but when another driver does something to upset me on the 
       road, I become one.  T    F 

12.  I disregard traffic rules.  They are just a nuissance.  T    F 

13.  Speed  limits are too low.  T    F 

14.  I swear a lot more in traffic than I do anywhere else.  T   F 

15.  I become more hostile or stressed at certain times in traffic or on certain roads.  T   F 
 
 

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  Female Scores                                                          Male Scores 

             4                                                                               4 
             3                                                                               6 
             0                                                                               4 
             4                                                                               4 
             4                                                                               6 
             8                                                                               8 
             2                                                                               4 
             4                                                                               6 
Total Female Score : 29                                            Total Male Score: 42 
Average Female Score: 3.625                                   Average Male Score: 5.25 
Range:  0 - 8                                                             Range: 4 - 8 
 

Female Scores 

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The total score for the males on aggressiveness was significantly higher than the females.    There was a total score of 42 for the males and 29 for females.  The average score for males was 5.25 as compared to 3.625 for the females.  What was interesting to me was that the range for females was very wide, ranging from 0 - 8; whereas the range for men was very narrow, from 4 - 8.  This leads me to believe that possibly men generally follow a standard for driving, which is moderately aggressive.  Females on the other hand select a course of action on the road ranging from aggressive to passive based on their individual personality and driving style.   
 

                                                                       The Gender Effect 
 

There was a big difference in scores between men and women.    Admittedly more than I thought that there would be.  I made a hypothesis in the beginning of this report that there would not be much of a gender difference.  However, males average score was 1.63 above the females.  Males scored a total score of 42 with females having a score of 29.  The obvious conclusion would be that males are more aggressive than females.  However, we as Psychology students know that correlation does not lead to causation.  When we dig further into the results we see that the range between the responses were so big for the females as compared to the males.  This really skews the results, in my opinion.  Because the highest score of 8 was from one male and one female.  So to generalize and say that all men are more aggressive than women would be wrong.   
 

As hard as I worked on my paper, I am a little discouraged at my findings because I know that my results are very generalized.  My sampling was very small (just 16 volunteers).   As we all know, the smaller the sample, the less reliable the results.  I did, however, try to get a wider range of volunteers in terms of age and driving years.  My age range was from 22 - 45.  I tried to expand beyond just college students to get a feel for the general population. 
I tuned and fine tuned and fine tuned again my questionnaire to make sure that the questions were gender relevant and that the test items would hopefully show gender differences, which it had.   
 

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Writing this report was fun and challenging.  When I first started the report I was so excited about the results that I would be able to uncover and have a better understanding of why Men were more aggressive than women.  After I got my results, however, I was a little frustrated with my findings as I realized that it was difficult to make such general assumptions on such a little sample especially since my range was so wide for the females.  I learned that when you set out to do an experiment, your findings will not always paint the picture you initially wanted.  You have to have an open mind and be ready to defend and analyze any findings that you might get.   Most of all, my advice to future generations is to have fun with it.  I know it's a school project, but it really is an opportunity for us to act like real researchers for a semester and uncover interesting findings!