Driving anger, sensation seeking, impulsiveness, and boredom proneness in the prediction of unsafe driving

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Abstract

The present study investigated the potential contribution of sensation seeking, impulsiveness, and boredom proneness to driving anger in the prediction of aggressive and risky driving. Two hundred and twenty-four college student participants completed measures of trait driving anger, aggressive and risky driving, driving anger expression, sensation seeking, impulsiveness, and boredom proneness. Findings provided additional support for the utility of the Driving Anger Scale (DAS; Deffenbacher, J.L., Oetting, E.R., Lynch, R.S., Development of a driving anger scale, Psychological Reports, 74, 1994, 83–91.) in predicting unsafe driving. In addition, hierarchical multiple regression analyses demonstrated that sensation seeking, impulsiveness, and boredom proneness provided incremental improvements beyond the DAS in the prediction of crash-related conditions, aggressive driving, risky driving, and driving anger expression. Results support the use of multiple predictors in understanding unsafe driving behavior.

Introduction

Despite efforts to improve automobile safety and decrease unsafe driving practices, motor vehicle accidents remain a serious public health problem (Hilton and Shankar, 2003, Rathbone and Huckabee, 1999, United States General Accounting Office, 2003). According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA, 2003), automobile accidents are the leading cause of death in the United States for persons between the ages of 4 and 33, resulting in 42,643 deaths and 2,899,000 injuries during 2003. In addition to the many lives lost, motor vehicle accidents have considerable financial costs in the form of medical and administrative expenses, employer costs and loss of productivity, and property damage. For example, motor vehicle crashes cost the United States approximately $230.6 billion in 2000 alone (NHTSA, 2003).

Considerable research has focused on predicting motor vehicle accidents. In a recent report to Congress, the US General Accounting Office (GAO; 2003) noted, “human factors are seen as the most prevalent, according to data, experts, and studies, in contributing to crashes, followed by roadway environment and vehicle factors” (p. 2). While respecting the importance of environmental factors, psychological research has generally focused on driver characteristics such as demographic, personality, cognitive, and information processing variables (Arthur et al., 1991). Although it is widely recognized that driving is a complex behavior, and accidents have multiple determinants (Hemenway and Solnick, 1993, Peck, 1993), potential predictors are often studied in isolation, and there have been relatively few attempts to combine multiple predictors in psychological studies of driving. This has led to important lines of research that have had surprisingly little overlap. The present study sought to combine four predictors of driving behavior that have been studied separately to date: trait driving anger, sensation seeking, impulsiveness, and boredom proneness.

Stimulated by data suggesting an increase in the most extreme forms of aggressive driving (i.e., attempting to injure or kill another person or damaging property in response to a traffic dispute) (American Automobile Association, 1997), the role of anger and aggressive driving in automobile accidents has received increased attention from both the media and from researchers. Recent data show that even among non-clinical samples, driving anger and aggressive driving are fairly common occurrences (Neighbors et al., 2002). In addition, a growing body of research now supports the utility of the Driving Anger Scale (DAS; Deffenbacher et al., 1994) in predicting anger toward other drivers, impatience with traffic, aggressive and risky driving, and traffic violations (Blanchard et al., 2000, Deffenbacher et al., 2000, Deffenbacher et al., 2001, Knee et al., 2001, Lajunen and Parker, 2001, Underwood et al., 1999). Using the DAS to form groups of high and low anger drivers, Deffenbacher's research group has demonstrated that high anger drivers are approximately 3.5–4.0 times more likely to engage in aggressive behavior while driving and 1.5–2.0 times more likely to engage in risky non-aggressive driving behavior (e.g., not wearing a seatbelt, exceeding the speed limit, etc.) than low anger drivers (Deffenbacher et al., in press, Deffenbacher et al., 2003a, Deffenbacher et al., 2003b, Deffenbacher et al., 2000, Deffenbacher et al., 2001).

Sensation seeking, defined as a personality trait involving the degree to which one desires novel and intense stimuli (Arnett, 1994, Zuckerman, 1990), is another factor that has received considerable attention for its role in driving behavior. Sensation seeking has been associated with drunk driving, exceeding the speed limit, racing other drivers, passing in no-passing zones, and a variety of other risky driving behaviors (Arnett, 1990, Arnett, 1994, Arnett, 1996, Arnett et al., 1997, Burns and Wilde, 1995, Clément and Jonah, 1984, Furnham and Saipe, 1993, Greene et al., 2000). Across the 40 studies he reviewed, Jonah (1997) noted that sensation seeking accounted for between 10–15% of the variance in risky driving. He also pointed out that the majority of studies found a positive relationship between sensation seeking and collision involvement.

Impulsiveness is another component of risk-taking that has received attention in the accident prevention literature. Impulsiveness is conceptually similar to sensation seeking, however, impulsiveness deals with one's control over one's thoughts and behaviors (Barratt, 1972) while sensation seeking refers to one's preference for novel experiences and a willingness to take risks (Zuckerman, 1994). Thus, high sensation seeking might lead to risk taking because of the thrill it provides (Arnett, 1994); impulsiveness might lead to risk-taking because the individual simply lacks the self-control to refrain from engaging in it (Barratt, 1994). Although early measures of impulsiveness overlapped with sensation seeking scales, especially the disinhibition component of sensation seeking (Barratt and Patton, 1983), later versions have refined impulsiveness as a distinct construct (Patton et al., 1995). Impulsiveness has been associated with drunk driving, reduced seatbelt use, impaired driver behavior, reduced ability to perceive traffic signs, and accident rates (Loo, 1979, Hansen, 1988, Stanford et al., 1996). Moreover, impulsiveness is thought to be associated with the type of impulsive aggression that characterizes most aggressive driving. Although it has not been studied in the context of aggressive driving, impulsiveness is related to general anger and aggression (Stanford and Barratt, 1992) and driving anger (Deffenbacher et al., 2003a, Deffenbacher et al., 2003b).

Although it has received considerably less attention in the literature than driving anger, sensation seeking, or impulsiveness, the construct of boredom proneness (i.e., one's propensity to experience feelings of boredom) has also been associated with unsafe driving behavior (Arnett, 1990, Furnham and Saipe, 1993, Verwey and Zaidel, 2000). However, each of these studies used the boredom susceptibility subscale of Zuckerman's (1971) sensation seeking questionnaire. Significant problems with Zuckerman's scale have been identified (Arnett, 1994), and most of the current boredom proneness literature uses the boredom proneness scale (BPS; Farmer and Sunberg, 1986), a measure which is weakly related to Zuckerman's Boredom Susceptibility subscale (r = 0.25). Although the BPS is correlated with measures of general anger and aggression (Dahlen et al., 2003, Rupp and Vodanovich, 1997), it has not yet been studied in the context of aggressive or risky driving. Therefore, the present study included the BPS on an exploratory basis.

The present study was conducted to determine whether sensation seeking, impulsiveness, and boredom proneness would provide incremental validity beyond the DAS in the prediction of unsafe driving. To maximize comparability of the present results with the previous DAS literature, the dependent measures included the driving survey (Deffenbacher et al., 2001) and the driving anger expression inventory (Deffenbacher et al., 2002). These instruments permitted us to evaluate the incremental validity of sensation seeking, impulsiveness, and boredom proneness in predicting crash-related conditions, aggressive driving, risky driving, and driving anger expression.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were 224 (70% female) undergraduate volunteers from psychology and social and rehabilitation services classes at the University of Southern Mississippi (median age = 19). Approximately 59.4% identified themselves as Caucasian, 36.2% as African American, 2.2% as Asian/Pacific Islander, 1.3% Hispanic, and 0.9% other. Participants were tested in group sessions lasting approximately 45 min and received research credit for their participation.

Driving anger scale (DAS)

The propensity to become angry while driving

Results

Means and standard deviations for all variables are presented in Table 1 by gender. A one-way (Gender) MANCOVA in which participant age served as a covariate was conducted on all variables to explore potential gender differences, F(17, 200) = 2.70, p < 0.001 (effect size = 0.19). When controlling for age, significant univariate gender effects were obtained on the AISS, BPSext, and the moving tickets item from the Driving Survey, Fs(1, 216) = 13.85, 4.62, and 6.78, ps < 0.05 (effect sizes = 0.06, 0.02, and

Discussion

Findings demonstrated that the addition of other personality traits generally improved the prediction of unsafe driving behavior beyond driving anger alone. Although the DAS explained the most variance in unsafe driving behaviors, sensation seeking, impulsiveness and boredom proneness all explained additional variance in certain dependent variables. Sensation seeking appeared to be the most useful variable after driving anger, as it predicted the largest number of variables. Impulsiveness aided

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