Summary on Ms. Lucey's (G6) Report
on Gender Differences in Driving


Ms. Lucey's report talks about the norms, stereotypes, and expectations on Gender Differences in Driving. First thing she did is to define the three terms and gave examples. She also mentioned a few gender differences that their class discussed, which I thought are the most common stereotypes we all have to deal
with everyday like:
  • Men are less likely to ask for directions and women find it more comfortable to do so.
  • If a car breaks down, it is more expected of a man to know what to do and more expected of a woman to stand on the side of the road unitl help arrives.
  • Men are more likely to criticize other drivers to where the other driver can hear them and women are more likely to criticize other drivers to themselves out of fear of retaliation.
  • Women prefer their male counterparts to drive they ride as passengers.
    •
    Ms. Lucey also shared her classmate's experience and her own experience in regards to gender differences -- that men are most likely to submit to road rage and women don't. Surprisingly, she found out that more and more women are driving recklessly like men do.

    In her report on gender differences, she also showed us the results of the test that was issued in their class. She had a raw data table to show us the results among the sixteen subjects she included in her survey, which consist of eight men and eight women. The results showed that women had scored higher than men, but she stated that these results cannot prove that it signifies gender differences in driving. She added that the issues of reliability and validity is essential when dealing with psychological tests like the one she conducted. She defined these two terms by using the definition she took from her Abnormal Psychology book. Ms. Lucey provided us with this definition of Reliability which is "An event must be reproducible under the circumstances stated anywhere, anytime." As well as the definition of Validity which is " the extent to which an assessment procedure is measuring what we intended to measure."

    At the end of her report, she said that many of our behaviors on the road whether it's bad or good, had become a social norm because we deal with them everyday, that consciously and subconsciously we're all engaging with such behaviors. She added that this is all a reflection of the aspect of classical conditioning, which she also defined in her report as "A learning process in which a neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that causes a reflex response so that the neutral stimulus comes to evoke that response on its own." Finally, for her recommendation to future generations, she basically wants us to improve the questionnares by adding a portion that may explain the subjects' answers furthermore, by indicating more of their feelings and thoughts significantly.



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