Determinants of Emotional Experiences in Traffic Situations ... - OPUS

76 Emotional States of Drivers and Their Impact on Driving Behaviour!
associated with very good road conditions, which promote safe driving. Goal relevance focuses on the
two most important traffic-related goals: timely and safe arrival at the destination (Cnossen, 2001).
Other-accountability relates to different agents causing changes in a given situation (Kuppens et al.,
2003). On the one hand, these can be other drivers interacting directly with others in a traffic situation.
Examples are specific negative driving patterns (speeding and tailgating) or gestures (honking and
verbal aggression). On the other hand a generic situational context (heavy rain or fog) can force a
driver to reassess the traffic event and change the driving behaviour.
This factorial structure has been discussed by many studies looking at driving anger but
mostly in an intuitive, general way. The frustration – aggression hypothesis (Dollard, Doob, Miller,
Mowrer, & Sears, 1939) was employed to cover all those traffic situations with various goal blocking
characteristics (and very often direct personal agency, too) (Björklund, 2008; Lajunen & Parker, 2001;
Lawton & Nutter, 2002; Lajunen, Parker & Summala, 2004). For example, the UK Driving Anger
Scale (Lajunen, Parker & Stradling, 1998) identified several clusters of anger provoking situations,
which shared similarities on the level of goal congruency and goal relevance: either the progress of the
participant was impeded or reckless driving reduced the safety. But the focus lays on the anger
emotion, caused by another driver’s blame. Furthermore, only two items from the original DAS
(Deffenbacher et al., 1994) deal with a potential anger-provoking event with no specific personal
agency (traffic jam and construction site). This picture changes however when looking at driving
anxiety (or driving related fear). Building on the assumption that a lack of control in a situation with
no specific identifiable agent can induce anxiety (Berkowitz, 1993; Lazarus, 1991), new sets of traffic
situations were studied. Dangerous road conditions and own maladjusted driving behaviour became
important and completed the catalogue of emotion eliciting events. (Ehlers, Hoffmann, Herda & Roth,
1994; Taylor, Deane & Podd; 2000).
In addition to situational attributes, personal characteristics are responsible for the occurrence
of emotions in traffic. Persons scoring high on trait (driving) anger tend to experience more emotions
in that specific domain than others and, as a result, drive faster and generate more traffic violations
(Deffenbacher, Oetting & Lynch, 1994; Mesken, Hagenzieker, & Rothengatter, 2005). High state
anxiety is associated with more self-inflicted errors while driving (Fairclough, Tattersall & Houston,
2006). Furthermore age, gender, driving experience or how important driving is to the driver and how
much they enjoy it (driving motivation) have an effect on emotional episodes on the road: younger
drivers tend to experience more anger than older ones (Lajunen & Parker, 2001; Parker, Lajunen &
Summala, 2002); men report more anger when they are impeded by other drivers (Deffenbacher et al.,
1994); woman are more angered when they are confronted with direct hostility, illegal actions or
traffic obstructions (Parker et al., 2002). Driving experience is generally negatively correlated with
anger feelings and experienced drivers feel less irritated in various traffic situations. It is assumed that
their anger-threshold is heightened due to a frequent exposure to critical situations (Lajunen & Parker,
2001). When traffic participants internalize driving in their identity, this obsessive passion starts to
control their actions and leads to greater desire and more intense will to drive. These highly motivated