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Overview
What Is A Driving Personality Makeover
Does This Apply To Me? The Procedures For A Driving Personality Makeover
Related Psychology ConceptsPlanning To Do A Driving Personality Makeover Plan
Resistance
Evaluation
Reactions and Feelings
Advantages and DisadvantagesImprovementsShockedTeaching ApproachLooking Into The Future Advice To Dr. James
DrivingPersonality Makeover
Overview
In everyday traffic situations,such as driving, bicycling, walking, and other forms of locomotion, thereare many responsibilities and rules that each of us have to follow. Nevertheless, people still break these laws and think that they are neverat fault for their actions. As one may already know, nobody wants to lookbad in the presence of others or in fact to damage their currentself-esteem. As a natural reaction people blame others for the mistakesthat they had made. This leads us to the topic of traffic psychology andthe notion of one's driving personality. Unfortunately, many people,including myself, have never heard of traffic psychology. So what is it? According to Dr. James' report on traffic psychology, he states "a commonactivity in traffic psychology is to attempt to modify one's olddriving persona to a new and betterdriving persona". In other words, one of the main criteria's in aDriving Personality Makeover (DPM) is to eliminate anynegative behaviors that occurs while a person is in traffic situations,especially driving. After reading the generational student reports oftheir own (DPM), it appears that nobody is a perfect driver. There aremajor or minor driving flaws in all of us. They range from speeding andrunning red lights to tailgating and cursing at other drivers. Mentally,however, we believe that there is nothing wrong with us. Thus, to realizethat one does have driving inadequacies and then to learn how to correctthem leads to an important cognitive driving skill in which the (DPM)allows us to do.
What is a Driving PersonalityMakeover?
First of all, let me give youa general definition of a personality. You may think of it as the totalphysical, intellectual, and emotional structure of an individual,including their abilities, interests, and attitudes. A person may havedifferent personalities in different situations. You may have a workpersonality (hard working and quiet), a school personality (sleeping inclass and very talkative around friends), a sports personality (playingrough and tough), and so forth. These are just general examples that mayor may not pertain to you so maybe on your free time you can think of allthe personalities you have. Finally, this leads us into what we weretrying to figure out. Yes, it's true, we all have a driving personalityalso. It may be good or bad. It depends how a person looks at it. But,according to societies norms, it is strongly stressed that all individualsis to have a kind of personality that is humble, caring, and unified. Basically, anything that shows that you have a positivepersonality. Like many, including myself, people are not always joyful,cooperative, and optimistic. Thus, they must be modified somehow toproduce a new outcome to achieve living conditions that is better andpeaceful. So now, the ( DPM) is this plan devised to do thesemodifications.
According to Nancee Aki's (G3) view of a (DPM), it is a three step process whichallows an individual to alter his or her behavior, drivingpersonality, and attitudes towards driving. The first step isto recognize the problem or flaw. You have to know the problem in orderto solve it. Not all of us are willing to admit that we do have aproblem. So, we have to take the responsibility for one's actions, good or bad. The next step is to analyze both internal and external factorsthat a driver may experience by self observation or by other's advice. The internal view is one's perspective of themselves as drivers on theroad: their sensations, explanations, impressions, emotions, andfeelings. Basically, the things that comes from the inside of our bodiesbut most of all, the things that are a result from our brains. Theexternal factors include those that cannot be directly managed by theperson. Situations like heavy traffic, the weather, and other driversall plays a part in modifying our own driving personality. The last stepis to finally alter our driving behavior to a more positive, careful, anda long-lasting personality. We all need to develop into aReformed Driver or a FacilitativeDriver, the twostages of a Driving Persona Makeover in Dr. James' report on trafficpsychology. A Reformed Driver is Dr. James' term for an improved,modified, or corrected driver (stage 1). And a Facilitative Driver meansto be a clear, forward moving, easy, and smooth driver (stage 2). Stage 2is like a maintenance worker for Stage 1.
The two stages both have the same three levels:
Affective Level
Cognitive Level
Sensorimotor Level
Onthe affective level, this includes anything to do with feelings, emotions,motives, and needs. On the cognitive level, this is one's cognitions,thoughts, reasoning, and decision making. And the last level deals withboth sensory and motor activities in the body. Under Dr.James' report, he lists several examples on how to accomplish each ofthe three levels. Not everyone's personality will be on the same level. Each person has a unique driving behavior that distinguishes them fromthe rest. One person may only be at the Affective level while anotherperson may be at the Cognitive level. However, everyone shares a singlegoal in traffic psychology and that is to become the ultimate,self-actualized, and facilitative driver. As a result, using a (DPM) planis a very helpful tool for an individual to achieve this universal goal. This (DPM) is like a proposal for an individual to encourage being politeto strangers, self-responsibility, obeying traffic laws, and to become abetter person as a whole.
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Does This Apply ToMe?
Actually, the (DPM) can be used by everyone only if they are willing to apply it into their daily lives. If peopleare forced or pressured into carrying out this plan, changes in theirpersonality will be reduced to a minimum. However, this statement can beproved wrong by some people. For example, students who feel that they didnot need a (DPM) plan in the first place and that they feel pressured tocomplete the assignment for at least a decent grade. They may changetheir results stating that there was improvements in their personalityjust to impress the instructor for a better grade. As stated before, noteveryone is at the same level. Thus, each person will have differentbehaviors that they would like to change the most. It may be Carol Ohta's (G3) impatient attitude,Donna Handoe's (G3) hostilebehavior, Denise Tanaka's(G2) tailgating, or AaronTakahashi's (G2) not wearing a seatbelt. Each of us has the potentialof becoming a better driver. The kind of change that encourages a personto take on new challenges in the future. A person who refuses to at leasttry a (DPM) plan has already failed to take the initial steps in thedirection of making any corrections of their negative thoughts and actionstowards other drivers, passengers in their car, and even pedestrians. Everybody tends to make mistakes, but not everyone realizes this problemof theirs or, in fact, they are not willing to take the time out tocorrect them.
You may be wondering why do we need to do it anyway? Letitia S. Lujan(G2) has an excellent explanation. She believes that if people wereto become a better or a so-called "enhanced" person on the road, then that behavior would probably transfer to other aspects of one's own life. Alan Furukawa (G2) has asimilar view. According to his opinion, the act of becoming a betterdriver (mentally aware of one's actions) will be very beneficial to one'stotal well-being as a person. As for me, I too believe in this kind ofreasoning. To actually live a happy life is to live a healthy,anxiety-free, and fulfilling life. If you were to give a smile andpleasant greetings to strangers each day, then eventually it would make their days a lot brighter. As a result, I agree that a (DPM) plan should be done for everyone. Even the best drivers can still have room for new improvements. In fact, I would be glad to participate in a (DPM) plan for myself.
To live in a world withouthate, negative tensions, and destruction would all be worth the while. Unfortunately, not everyone is aware that they even have a drivingpersonality. This proves to be one of the major problems why there arestill people out there on the roads yelling curse words at you, speedingby at a minimum of 70 mph, and most of all the major accidents and deathsthat occur on the roads. It seems as if people tend not to
learn fromother people's mistakes. After watching numerous and similar news reportsabout four or five teens being killed in a car accident as a result ofalcohol and speeding, it makes you wonder how stupid aperson can be when you see two cars racing on a moderately busy freeway,weaving back and forth in the lines, squeezing between two cars (havingjust enough room for their car), and going at least maybe 75 mph just toget ahead of the other car. These actions not only endangers the lives ofthemselves and their passengers, but they carelessly forget about thedangers that may occur to the other drivers around. I believe that ifeveryone learns to modify their personality to drive less recklessly thenthe number of accidents will also decrease.
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TheProcedures For A Driving Personality Makeover
After reading the reports from Generation 2 and 3, one can easily learnhow to do a (DPM) attempt. First of all, a person has to realize forthemselves that they have a problem. Many students preferred to use themethod of self-observation. Self-observation is donewhen one observes their own behaviors that is in an objective point ofview. This will enable the observer to identify the target behavior thatneeds to be changed and then allows them to design their own plan on howto modify this unwanted behavior. This self-awareness produces aninnovative kind of knowledge about one's self and thus, leading to new andbetter outcomes. Some of the ways in which a person can record theirself-observation are listed below:
Carrying a small taperecorder with them as Donna Handoe (G3) did
Verbalizing what they are witnessing (whether mental or out loud) in which Dr. James emphasized
After reaching a destination, writing down everything you canremember about the ride as in the case of Denise Tanaka (G2)
Ifyou got the money, you can possibly videotape yourself, but noteveryone can have this luxury as Audy Viloria (G3) finds out
Some of the ways to proceed through a Driving PersonalityMakeover is (1) to overcome any resistance to change. This may includeallowing passengers to complain or make suggestions about your driving andto also inhibit your swearing. Once this is accomplished, (2) one has tomaintain their positive driving image and reputation. One may forgiveothers' for the mistakes and weaknesses that are made on the streets, mayfeel good and responsible for their own actions, and behave nobly to otherpeople surrounding them. Another way on how you can do a (DPM) attempt is(3) to have a rational analysis of all the traffic incidents that occurdaily and to reason like a traffic psychologist. They may observe otherdriver's behaviors objectively or just focusing on self-observation. Tothink like a traffic psychologist, you become a traffic psychologist. Inall, it is to acquire a new and desirable driving personality by analyzingyour current personality. Nevertheless, (4) people can just appear orbehave to be an improved driver. They can wave, smile, and signaleverytime they change lines or when somebody lets them cut in front ofthem (acting in a good mood), or just to enjoy the ride they are having atthat moment. They can be care-free, obey all the laws, and be merry drivers. To act happy, eventually you will becomehappy. However, to incorporate all of these examples previously mentionedis to elevate oneself to a higher level of becoming thesmooth driver.
Dr.James lists the procedures in traffic psychology (personalinterpretations included):
To have knowledgeabout the Generational Curriculum on traffic psychologyconvinces everyone that traffic psychology is needed and useful. Ifsomeone had no prior knowledge of their existing driving persona then howcan it produce change in that person.
To gather yourown self-witnessing data convinces you that you too need trafficpsychology. If someone tends to nag you about your driving, people tendto become defensive and in this situation it only makes matters worse. Each person has to realize for themselves that they do have a problemand it is their duty to resolve it.
To carry out andmaintain this long-term systematic behavioral self-modification is a wayto improve one's life and those around them. This (DPM) plan is foreverlasting and is not short-term. People tend to have a bad habit and later returning to these unwanted behaviors. In order to overcome this, a constantself-observation and modification is necessary to produce anautomatization of good driving habits. We do not want to go in the pathof a negative automatization. Using Sharla Supnet's quote (G2) from Bryan Yucoco, itstates, "I have become a victim". She knows that swearing is bad, butbecause it's automatic, she does it anyway. In order to stop herswearing, it takes a lot of control.
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Related Psychology Concepts
There are many terms in social psychology that goes hand in hand with aDriving Personality Makeover. First of all, the basic sociallearning theory which is defined as a theory that behavior islearned, primarily through observational learning. As a result,self-awareness (observation) is the major key that allows the (DPM) to besuccessful. As stated earlier, we also want an automaticprocessing of positive driving habits. This is the formation ofgood driving habits without much thought or attention. Nevertheless,people also tend to have a biased selection ofinformation about their driving behaviors. A driver may have afreezing of perception in which they only pay attention to only thosefacts that are consistent with their belief structure (that they are gooddrivers) and further reinforcing that belief structure (that they may tune out all of their bad driving habits). At the start of their traffic psychology course, the students thought that there was nothing wrong with their driving behaviors but now they have brokenthis biased selection of information and realized that they do have aproblem. Drivers also tend to believe that individuals get what theydeserve and deserve what they get. This is known as thejust-world hypothesis. They think, "Oh, that guy got intothat accident because he was drinking and speeding, he deserves it. So,in order to avoid getting into traffic accidents or paying off anyviolations, they put on their seltbelts, go by the speed limit, do notlitter, and so on. By following the rules, they deserve to get rewardedby going from one destination to the next safely. This is very similar to the Eichmann's fallacy. This is the belief that evil deedsmust be done by evil people. The belief that speed drivers are onlyseeking to endanger the lives around them. They are the evil ones and notus (even if we tend to speed).
Have you ever driven pass a car stuck on the side of the road with an elder male or female person trying tochange their tire?? Well if you did, then you just passed by yourhelping behavior. This is a type of behavior that is atleast partially motivated by the desire to relieve one's personal distress(your feelings of guilt for not helping the person in the first place) or toattain some reward rather than solely based on relieving the suffering ofthe victim (to receive money from the person or just for personalsatisfaction in that solely helping the person is your reward).
There are many theorists about personality as well that is very similiar to your driving personality. One of them is Alfred Adler's view of social interest. To have everybody with positive driving habits there is a "social feeling" or "community feeling" of being in unity. There is Abraham Maslow's self-actualization,which is very similar to becoming a reformed and facilitative driver. Both is the highest level of human motivation in which people have fully developed all of their psychological capacities. This is one of the goals in traffic psychology. Students such as Jason Nakasato (G2),Michelle Alonzo (G3), Abe Cabuag (G3) , Jeana Chen (G3), and the restof the students in traffic psychology have all tried to attain this level. In a (DPM) plan, each driver strives for Carl Rogers' term of aperson of tomorrow. Here, the psychologically healthydriver is in the process of evolving into all that he or she can become. So, in order for this to happen, we must have rationalfunctions. This is Carl Jung's term in which the methods ofdealing with the world involves thinking and feeling (valuing). Humanshave been blessed with what is called the "higher" brain. Without it wewould be like the computer screen you are looking at. It cannot think orfeel. Don't you think this is why we are so very fortunate??
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Planning To Do A Driving Personality MakeoverPlan
After reading numerous generational student reports, including those of Tina Suehisa (G3), Angie Inouye (G3), Gay e (Kai) Tarutani Reynolds(G3), and Bryan Yucoco(G2), I found that the methodology for a Driving Personality Makeoverplan is a relatively simple design to follow. Basically, it isself-observing yourself while you are driving, finding out all of yournegative behaviors that you have, and then transforming it into a betterone. Observations can be done by verbalizing (mentally or out loud),keeping journals, or tape/video recording yourself. Students have triedto use the operant conditioning technique for their modifications. Thisis when they punished themselves by giving a quarter to a friend each timethey performed the act. While other students just had to think positiveand the corrections was made from there. From someone who didn't knowanything about traffic psychology, in just a couple of days, I feelconfident enough that the information provided by the past students iswell enough for me to succeed in my own (DPM) plan.
Resistance
Resistance is a term often used by Sigmund Freud intherapy. He states that it is a variety of unconscious responses used bypatients to block their own progress in therapy. In a way this is truebecause the generational students didn't even realize that they had bad habits until after the (DPM) plan wasinitiated. Resistance to change seems to be a natural behavior that isused by everyone. People tend to feel ackward if they have to dosomething that is out of their daily routine, even if it is a bad habit. People may feel lost if they are prevented from biting their nails or eventerrified if they missed brushing their teeth in the morning. In relationto a (DPM) attempt, I would definitely expect people to show some kind ofresistance to this kind of treatment in the early stages. Eventually, astime goes on and if they continue to use this plan, changes will occur forthe better.
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Evaluation
Reactions and Feelings
Using the on-line generational curriculum in traffic psychology has beenvery interesting but only after you get familiar with using the Netscape. During the first days of school, you can not image how many times I wentto the Help Desk in Keller. I had to go there to sign up for a UHUNIX account and then I had to pick it uplater, I had to ask why the computer would not let me change me jigsawpuzzle (password) and finally I went there again to get the Netscape disksso I could use it at home. Things was all a big confusion to me. But the one thing that I have learnedvery very well in this class is to ask for help. Iwasted a lot of time just sitting in front of the computer screen becauseI was afraid to ask for help. I was afraid as a result of feeling likeyou are the only one in the whole room who doesn't know what the hell youare doing (pardon my language). You may realize how simple things may turnout to be when someone shows you how to it is done. I would put this asRule #1 in my book. You don't need to worry because everybody else hasto go through or have gone through these beginning stages. Everyday is anew learning experience for me. I have realized how much closer the CLICLab is to the class so I have moved from using the Macintosh Lab atKeller to there. Now, I have found another place that I could go to inPorteus Hall.
Being that this is during the summersession and my first time using the internet, I feel honored to be puttingup this report on only the second week of school. During the first weekof school I was kind of scared to continue with this class because, basically, you were on your own in exploring the World Wide Web. Readingthe past student's report on their adaptation to the internet has beenvery helpful since they contain many hints for beginners like me. I'mglad that I did not drop this class and stuck with it because it is veryexciting and rewarding to learn new and easy tips on how to master one's fear about computers. I have learned things in a week that would take about a monthin the regular school session and I enjoy helping other students who arein the same boat as me. In a way, this teaching behavior is reinforcing to mebecause it is easy to forget some of the many shortcuts that I havelearned already.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Some of the advantages with this on-line generational curriculum isthat you are the one deciding on what to read and not the instructor. If youdecide that the report you are reading is boring, one click of the mousewill send you, in seconds, to another report. Also, there is no big book to lug around and there is no set amount ofreading assigned to you except the handy (7 chapter) HTML3 book. Dr.James also allows his students to freely explore Netscape and discover allthe wonders of this world. The reading is fairly simple because it iswritten by other students like me. As a result, there won't be any vocabquizzes that will surprise the students. Because of this, anotheradvantage is that there are no finals for this class except for the fourreports you have to put on Netscape and it may be revised as many timesyou want until you are satisfied with the grade you want. An additionaladvantage is the student helpers. They are the ones that give you hope inwhat you think is a lost cause.
The disadvantages thatwould occur for the students is when they if they don't even have a computer at home to work on and if they have jobs to go to right after class. To findthe time to spend on Netscape would be a difficult task to accomplish forthese people. Lucky for me, I only work on Mondays and Fridays. Therest of the days are spent in school. Another disadvantage is that evenif you do have computer with Netscape it takes forever to you to get intothe system at night. Many students in this class have discovered this problem the hard way. They spend many hours just trying to get in. As for me, I do all my Netscape searching at school. The badthing about it is that you will be spending long hours at school, whichcould last for about 4 to 6 hours per day. An extra disadvantage is thatthe Computer Labs are closed on the weekends. Thus, for people like mewho does not even have a modem can only type out the report on theMicrosoft Word for now and load it up in school. Lastly, I am still waiting for my CSS account so I can not upload this report anyways until I get one and the due date istomorrow. But then again, if I don't get it tomorrow I can send a e-mailto Dr. James to extend my due date. The only thing bad about not having aCSS account is that you are unable to check if your links work or not. Well, I lied there is a way but that would defeat the purpose of havingthese shortcuts. The other way is to type out the whole address of your link instead of the ../../ method.
Computers are everywhere now. Computersis what makes learning so fun. I feel that a person can gain unlimitedinformation by using this on-line generational curriculum. There aredifferent opinions and new ideas that readers can learn from. A personcan look at creative pictures and designs that catches the eye. In turn,this will make reading the text more stimulating. Grade schools havealways pushed on having computers for the kids. I know you must have seenthose commercials where you can shop for a better education. The more you spend at the super market the morecomputers there will be in the schools. In relation to this class,computers has been a terrific source for learning about trafficpsychology. However, in comparison, it is very different from the restof the psychology classes that I have taken already. But, I think it's goodthat you experience something different once in your life because you maynever know if you have to go through the same experience in the future. After this class is done, I may never use the internet again but you andI may never know this. In addition, this class beats out all of those boringlectures that you have to sit through like in the other classes.
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Improvements
Overall, I can't think of any improvements at this moment because this is only thesecond week of school and I haven't gone through all of the reports yet. However, I feel that once you build the basic foundations for using thiskind of curriculum the more easier it will be for a person to be able toutilize it. However, more reports about different topics from futuregenerations is needed in order to make this curriculum more complete. Because each generation is so small and that they are writing about thesame thing, the topics that are covered is very limited. By havingdifferent topics, this will allow the students of the future to expand theirknowledge.
Shocked
When I first came to this class, I had no idea what it was about. Iwas very nervous because I hated suspense. After reading some of thereports in this Generational Curriculum I was very surprised that trafficpsychology even existed. Like Letitia Lujan (G2), all of this was newto me. In fact, I just finished a class about theories of personalitythis past semester and it did not say anything about a drivingpersonality. As for my opinions about this amazement of mine, it is veryimpressive, excellent, and ever accelerating. I believe it will continueto grow and shock other students like myself.
Teaching Approach
Dr James'approach to teaching is very promising, enhancing, and unique. His styleencourages students to learn and then to teach other students. He allowsthe students to explore the computer without giving away all the answers. By having this kind of teaching approach it rewards the students with pride and joy because theyare the ones who figured out how to use the commands that the computeroffers (well maybe with the help of the student helpers). Most of all, you are teaching yourself. I feel that he should continue his style of teaching because unlike the other classes, I willnot end up with two notebooks full of notes. Instead, it will all be inmy head and if I forget it can be easily printed out on paper. I feelproud, exhilarated, and enthusiastic to have been part of this classbecause my reports can now be read by future generations and by those exploringthe internet. His teaching approach brings out the fun in learning. Inthe age of computers, I wouldn't see any reason why this approach wouldn'twork for high school students if it works in the grade schools. People enjoyhaving fun and a computer with Netscape is like a video game that permitsusers to learn something instead of killing those aliens from the sky.
Looking Into The Future
Can you image being part of a private club made up of people youdon't even know?? While there is a great possibility that futuregenerations will follow this one and with this continued expansion, we allwill be connected somehow just by our names. We can only guess how eachperson looks like just by reading their reports. We can make new friendsby e-mailing to them. We are able to explore each person's personality. All in all, I see only positive outcomes of this generationalcurriculum.
Advice to Dr.James
Have more student helpers. Maybe one more person should be enough. They sure are a really big helpto the students. Well that's all for now.
DO YOU NEED TO TRANSFORM YOUR DRIVING BEHAVIORS????
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