This report will examine two specific traffic incidents from students within the Generational Curriculum for Traffic Psychology 459. This report will show how how all three psychological domains of a driver work together within each specific traffic incidents. These three psychological domains are:

The first traffic incident that caught my attention was in Joleen Lai's Psy 459 Lab Report. Because this paragraph in Joleen's report contains many traffic incidents, I must point out that the one I am reffering to concerns the incident in which she is driving in her car with her cousins. She explains that when a car cut in front of her very suddenly, she had to slam on her brakes. This specific action actually involves a more complex chain of events. Although Joleen sites her "slamming on the brakes" as the first thing she did when the car cut in front of her, it was more likely a cognitive thought going through her brain warning her of a potentially dangerous situation. This thought activated by her cognitive domain, was processed by her brain resulting in a sensorimotor reaction of her foot slamming on her brake. Joleen goes on to say that she realized that her actions startled her cousins riding with her in her car. The negative thought and the resulting negative sensorimotor reaction elicited yet another negative reaction, this time in the form of negative feelings. These negative feelings held within the affective domain were combined with other cognitive thoughts. These other thoughts were of Joleen's concern for her cousins in her car. Some of these thoughts helped to neutralize the negative thoughts caused by the "moron" that cut in front of her. Although Joleen explicitly says that she tried to, "...bite her tongue..." to not cuss at these drivers, these negative thoughts and feelings seemed to overwhelm her and caused Joleen to react by swearing at this moronic driver.

This traffic incident clearly shows how all three psychological domains are present in a specific traffic incident. Although this example may be hard to visualize, it shows the cyclical nature of these three domains. Negative feelings elicit negative thoughts which in turn result in a negative reaction. This is the same for positive feelings, thoughts, and actions. What makes this all so confusing is that there may be so many feelings, thoughts, and actions going on at once, that a specific pattern for an individual domain process may become too difficult to single out. Thoughts and feelings may combine to form a certain reaction, and certain reactions to external stimuli may combine to form specific thoughts and feelings, etc.

The next traffic experiences that I cited to show these three domains come from Adele Kimura's Lab Report. Adele cites her experiences with driving in convoys. Here Adele comments on the overall driving behaviors the convoys that she has experienced when coming to school in the morning. Her comment that, "...I feel that convoys are just like gangs: they cause trouble." shows how she clearly makes use of her affective domain. Although she doesn't specifically say that she hates convoys, the thought of a gang has a rather grim and negative connotation to it. When driving in convoys, she probably feels as if she doesn't belong to this "gang", and that her driving behaviors are not conforming to those of the convoy. Adele continues by conjecturing that the feelings of the students (drivers) in these convoys are more surprised than anything else. She comes up with this conclusion probably by interjecting her own experiences and self-witnessing her own thoughts and feelings while driving in these convoys. If Adele is correct. and these drivers' cognitive domains are mostly preoccupied with thoughts of surprise, their sensorimotor domains will react accordingly. Although surprise may not be seen as a negative thought, when it is accompanied by anger, as Adele points out, this apparently negative feeling will influence these drivers' thoughts negatively. The most interesting point of this process within convoys is that the entire convoy acts as a whole. It seems as if their feelings, thoughts, and actions are all linked together. This type of driving behavior is very necessary mainly because of safety. If an individual driver becomes a part of the convoy, they have to follow the same driving patterns as the rest of the convoy. If they don't, an accident may occur. The funny thing is that when a driver becomes a part of the convoy, they don't realize the negativity of their driving behaviors. These convoy drivers are isolated in their own personal convoy world. They feel as if they "belong", just as members of a gang feel. This type of feeling and thinking allows these convoy drivers to excludeother drivers from their "gang" without even realizing what they're doing.

Although this example may not seem as dangerous as tailgating or cutting in front of a car, it happens more frequently than most people realize. Everytime I drive on the freeway I end up in a small convoy of sorts. We all drive at the same speeds and stay within the same lanes. This behavior follows until offramps or onramps break up the convoy. It is the immediate influence of each driver's behavior upon the other drivers in the convoy that make this experience so unique. The exclusion of other drivers by the convoy also creates a unique trafic experience.