Report 1:
Studying the Online Generational Curriculum in Traffic Psychology
Steps to Safer Driving

Grant Muranaka
Report 1
Psychology 409 @University of Hawaii
Instructor: Dr. Leon James

Table of Contents
What is a Driving Personality Makeover? Do my Actions Affect Others? Let's Begin Resistance to Starting Evaluation A Whole New World The Next Step

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What is a Driving Personality Makeover?

The invention of the automobile was probably one of the greatest inventions ever created. It allowed people to commute from point A to point B, transfer cargo and supplies in a relatively short period of time and most importantly, helped link neighboring communities together, expanding them into towns, and later into districts and states. At first, the invention of the automobile allowed more and more people to live further and further from their desired place of destination (school, work, etc.) yet enabled them to get to these places in a relatively short period of time. Unfortunately as time progressed, people began to spend more and more time driving in their vehicles, commuting from point A to point B and with the extended periods of time in their vehicles, many developed routines and habits. At first many of these routines and habits may have just been used to save some time, or help one ease the pressures of life, but according to past students reports in the traffic psychology Generational Curriculum Archives, many believed that these routines and habits, if left unchecked could create serious harm, or accidents for many innocent individuals.

To avoid the threat of putting other individuals at risk, Bryan Yucoco (Generation 2) believes that people should change these behaviors by implementing a Driving Personality Makeover plan. Implementing a Driving Personality Makeover Plan, gives that individual a sense of control in something in their life in which they previously thought that they had no control over and was at the mercy of fate. A Driving Personality Makeover Plan according to Angie L. Inouye (Generation 3), is an attempt to change an undesired behavior before this behavior escalates and becomes a health-threatening hazard to you, someone you love, or some poor unsuspecting individual. Individuals often get into accidents because they feel that they could save a couple of seconds by speeding or driving recklessly. Unfortunately, all these individual's actions end up doing is delaying them from their destination by putting them at a greater risk of getting them into an accident or permanently delaying themselves or another individual from arriving at their destination.
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Do My Actions Affect Others?

At this point in time, many people would be thinking to themselves, why do I even need to continue reading this report, my actions do not affect others. But according to Carol Ohta's (Generation 3) report on an impatient attitude, Donna Handoe's (Generation 3) report on hostile behavior, Aaron Takahashi's (Generation 2) report on not wearing a seatbelt, and Sharla Supnet (Generation 2), she also once thought that she was a safe driver who did not really think that her driving behavior affected others. But after observing her driving behavior for a while, she soon discovered that her driving did negatively affect everyone around her and put her and other drivers at a greater risk of being involved in an accident. Everyone who bends the law to suit their driving should go through a driving personality makeover in order to prevent this from occurring. You know who you are, those like Diane Beauchemin (Generation 1) who cut people off, accidently of course or Todd Takitani (Generation 1) who never used blinkers, to signal their intentions to other drivers, or those who travel 5 to 10 miles over the speed limit or even more, those who do not signal while changing lanes, and finally those who tailgate so close that they look like they want to play bumper cars.

I agree with Denise Tanaka (Generation 2) when she states that people should do a Driving Personality Makeover because this prevents accidents from occurring and individuals from getting hurt. She states that one small thing would piss her off, and then she would start to drive a little recklessly, venting off steam. Next, another thing would compound the problem, then another and another until she finds herself performing unsafe behavior. She also mentions that drivers may actually feed off the negative emotions from other drivers who perform reckless behavior. It may begin with one individual innocently switching lanes without signaling, the driver in back in turn becomes upset and starts to tailgate. The tailgating driver may be forced to stop all of a sudden and then the driver in back of him, may have to switch lanes without looking to avoid an accident, and in the process barley hit a couple of cars. While the drivers of the cars almost involved in the accident yell and give each other the finger, they may not watch where they are heading and hit a pedestrian or another car and cause injury or death.
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Let's Begin

As anyone can see, little events could sure snowball into big time trouble in a hurry. So, now you may be asking yourself, "How do I change my driving behavior?", well the answer is an easy one, all you have to do is a Driving Personality Makeover. Now the big question is "Where do I start?". Well, the first step to implementing a Driving Personality Makeover and safer driving according to Josephine Allen (Generation 1) is to identify the behavior you wish to change, and to make a diary of your driving behavior for about a week, including when and what provoked you to do your undesired behavior. This allows you to discover what provoked you, when you were provoked, and what you were doing when you were provoked. Information gathered through this driving diary also allows one to give oneself a baseline to compare themselves with, to see if they improved their undesired behavior or not.

Secondly, according to Cynthia Yap (Generation 2), the individual must then make and carry out a plan to change the undesired behavior. You must set up a goal, and set out to accomplish it. You could do one of two things to accomplish this goal. The first is to gradually, step by step work up to change the undesired behavior. To do this you could use operant conditioning, using positive reinforcers to gradually reinforce and change the undesired behavior in the right direction. To accomplish this, you must first set up smaller sub-goals on your way to changing your undesired behavior. After you accomplish each sub-goal, reward yourself and slowly work toward the next sub-goal and the next one until you finally accomplish your final goal of changing your undesired behavior. Secondly you could use classical conditioning like how Sherman Lee (Generation 3) did to associate an undesired behavior, his tailgating behavior with a pinch, or how Noreen Dorion (Generation 3) associated her undesired swearing, with a rubber band and pain.
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Resistance to Starting

The information stored in the Generational Curriculum Archives, provides a lot of detailed information in addition to a lot of inspiration for those who wish to proceed with their own Driving Personality Makeover. The archives contain numerous stories about student's personal attempts at a Driving Personality Makeover, as well as moral support for those who are still reluctant to try it.

Many individuals may still show resistance to a Driving Personality Makeover because they feel that their actions do not seriously affect those around them. But according to Shane Akagi (Generation 1) everyone's actions from formatting a disk to changing lanes without signaling to tailgating someone affects others whether we know it or not. People get upset when we unconsciously change lanes without signaling because other drivers are forced to jerk their steering wheel suddenly to avoid an accident which in turn may actually cause an accident. Or when the Sunday driver in front of us decides that 30 miles per hour is way to fast on the freeway and suddenly decides to hit the brakes, our switching lanes and acceleration past this vehicle may cause those on the side of us and those in the back of us to hit one another. As Conrad Moreno (Generation 3) states, he once thought, like many of you out there, that I am an excellent driver, or that I have no bad driving habits, but know that everyone has at least one undesirable driving habit which they should change, and the sooner they do it the better. I agree with Claudia Kaneshiro (Generation 1), when she states individuals should do a Driving Personality Makeover because like her, she has shown postitive changes after starting a D.P.M.
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Evaluation

Whenever someone undertakes something new or unfamiliar, that event naturally stirs about a little fear and anxiety within them, yet when Dr. Leon assigned our class to do our first report about "Driving Personalities" on the Web, I was ecstatic. I felt just like Dalybeth Kadala(Generation 3a) felt, like I bit off more then I could chew, I mean, I barely knew anything about the internet and on-line things like that, but I was determined not to give up. I mean how bad could it be? At first doing this assignment was a little nail biting, but as I played around with the keys and commands more and more, it became easier and easier to do. I guess familiarity with the computer, the internet, and the World Wide Web diminished my fears about this assignment and now here it is, almost completed. But as Christy Forsythe (Generation 3a) states, that one barrier to overcoming this fear was that at least half of our class's C.S.S. passwords was delayed for an average of 1/3 to 1/2 of the semester. Therefore during this time we were unable to post anything on the World Wide Web.

The advantage of using the Generational Curriculum Archives, was that it was a fast and relatively easy way to access information about former students reports in just seconds, versus conventional library research of looking up research material which could take a couple of hours to accomplish. Reading these past students' reports, gave me a better sense of what these students felt and thought when they were doing their Driving Personality Makeovers and gives someone a preview of what to expect if they were to carry out a Driving Personality Makeover. Another benefit of learning about traffic psychology on the internet is that if one has questions or desires clarification about something written in the archives, one could e-mail the author.

But the disadvantage to this is that the author does not have to reply to one's e-mail and the use of a computer to do one's work becomes a little stressful, especially if one has limited access to a computer outside of school, or if one does not have a modem. Also, a further disadvantage to this type of learning compared with a regular psychology class is that one losses the human interaction with the professor teaching the course. If a student needs a question clarified, all they have to do is ask or see the professor after class. Unfortunately with the computer, a reply to a question is usually delayed if asking by e-mail, if at all responded to.
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A Whole New World

I was surprised that the Generational Curriculum Archives even existed. Who would have imagined that there is a place somewhere out there were past student's reports and works are saved relatively permanently and for everyone to view when they desire. I think this gives students a sense of accomplishment that their work is good enough to be posted somewhere where millions of people could view it if they wish. I also support the idea that future generations are required to maintain and upgrade the archives, because this further pushes the learning and creative abilities of students. Furthermore, a sense of accomplishment comes over me as I see my work posted on the World Wide Web, knowing that many more besides my instructor will be reading these very words.

A lot of people will be reading these reports which the past generations and I wrote. But the group or people out there who I think should seriously take a look at these reports are those students in high school. When one is a high school student, they often think that they are invincible, that nothing could ever hurt or harm them, that they are untouchable. But unfortunately reality hits many of these youths hard smack in the face, costing them injury or even death. It is true that students in high school often do not listen to those who try to give them advice, but I think that if high school students had to opportunity to read some of these works by college students, they may take the time to listen to them because college students know what a high school student is going through. Unfortunaly, like Lori Kim (Generation 3a) points out, finances are currently unavailable to provide these students with access to these computers.

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The Next Step

I support the continuation of the Generational Curriculum, like Rudolph Dolfo (Generation 3a) when he states that computer skills learned through this class allow them to be better confident and better equipped to face the future. A reason for this is because it allows students to challenge themselves and explore a whole new world which many of us did not even know existed. But what I think future generations and Dr. James could do to make this class a little easier it for our instructor to assign a class to do a project which everyone gets together and gives input on "The basics one needs to know in order to survive in this course". The project would include the very basics from how to make links, to setting up a home-page, to e-mailing. I think that this should be done so that when future generations enroll in Dr. James's course, they could read this document the first day of class and this document could serve as a supplement to Dr. Jame's class lectures and as a reference.

The reason I would like single reference page which the class as a group constructs instead of hundreds of individual pages giving advice is because when a student needs a question answered they could just turn to one source and all of their questions could be answered, instead of the students searching through hundreds of reports just for one answer. Also I would be in favor of a group report like this because personally, as a student who did not know anything about the internet and how to do most of these things, I barely understood Dr. James when he went over most of his instructions in class because he used terminology which he expected many of us to already know. This report by students would serve to supplement the gaps which Dr. James assumes we already know, and because the students who are writing the report also started off knowing little or nothing about the internet, they would have an easier time explaining these same ideas and concepts to future generations.

Within a couple of years the Generational Curriculum Archives , would probably have grown exponentially. Universities may even offer courses like this via the internet, so you could attend a school like the University of Hawaii and take another course in another school, thousands of miles away. One would not have to travel thousands of miles or pay tens of thousands of dollars to attend an ivy league school, they could even at tend a community college and yet still receive the same instruction and caliber of instruction at a school such as Princeton, Harvard, or Yale. In addition to posting one's reports so millions could view it, these students would also have something to look back on when they are in their 30's, 40's, 50's, and beyond. These reports would serve as a reminder, reminding them of at least one semester back in college, the late nights on the computer terminal typing one's report, the strained eyes, burning the midnight oil, the nonfunctioning aching brain calling for more aspirin, and the frustration of trying to type something, and post it up, before the midnight deadline.

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