Report 6
A mini self witnessing experiment

What is a self witnessing experiment?

This is a mini self witnessing experiment in which we drive in the usual way and observe our feelings, thoughts, and actions toward a particular driving problem (tailgating, speeding, violent thoughts, ect.) using the self witnessing process. This is the first step in a driving personality make over. In this process we discover our driving personality and try to modify it. After that we take another drive, but this time we try to drive opposite of the behavior that we are trying to modify. So if were looking at speeding, then we try to drive the speed limit, the next day.

My self witnissing experiment


The first day
For my self witnessing experiment, I chose to observe my temper on the road or violent thoughts, because I think that this is the key to all my other bad driving habits. As I have stated in my report1 , when I get angry, I loose control and try to regain control of a situation by speeding or driving recklessly. Also check out my report 2 for a self witnessing on tailgating.
On the first day of my self witnessing, I was driving to class and was running a little late. So I was a little concerned that I wasn't going to make it to class on time. As I was driving down through Nuuanu, this guy was in the right lane and signaled to turn into my lane. But I knew that he had gone into the right lane to get ahead of all the other drivers then at the last moment moved back into the middle lane to get on to the freeway. But in spite of the fact that I thought that he should have waited in the back like the rest of us, I let him in anyway, by waiving him in. After that he didn't, wave back to thank me! (we do that in Hawaii) Automatically I got really angry because, I was already late and I was nice enough to let him in and he didn't even have the courtesy to say thanks. I said out loud, ass hole! and stuck middle finger at him under the dash board so he couldn't see it. I didn't want him to see it, I just wanted to get out some frustration.

What this all means

Let's take a look at this using the Affective, Cognitive, and Sensorimotor, aspects of psychology. The affect is that I felt that when I let him in I was doing him a favor and that the least he could do was thank me. The cognitive aspect is that I assumed that since he didn't wave at me he didn't care that I did him a favor. The sensorimotor is that I got angry and flicked him off and called him an ass hole. I still haven't decided if this is healthy or not, I mean I got out my frustrations and he didn't see or hear me so he didn't get hurt, right?!

The second day

So the next time I had to drive, opposite of how I usually drive, this meant that I had to refrain from getting angry. So as I was driving home from class one day, I see this guy closing on me really fast and then changes lanes and speeds around me. With the thought that I had to react opposite of how I usually do, I just thought to my self that maybe there was some kind of emergency. I didn't know why he was speeding, right? Maybe he had to use the bathroom really badly or something really serious at home like a medical emergency or fire or something. I guess it was over all successfull, I mean I think that I could keep this type of thinking up. It's not such a hard thing to do and I also get more peace of mind without endangering anyones life.
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