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

82 Emotional States of Drivers and Their Impact on Driving Behaviour!
The contempt emotion follows a similar pattern as anger, being higher in situations with
another car involved (χ 2 (1, 78) = 10.90; p< .001). There is the same interaction between goal
relevance and accountability due to weak contempt in Scenario 4 (M = .07; χ 2 (1, 78) = 46.20; p<
.013) No main effect of goal relevance or goal congruence was observed, which indicates that those
situations induce a similar level of contempt.
Where the safety of the driver is negatively affected without any other driver to blame, anxiety
is experienced the most. The interaction effect between goal relevance and other-accountability
reflects the observed means (χ 2 (1, 78) = 14.12; p < .001). The highest anxiety values (M = 1.08
(SD = 1.48) in the goal blocking, respectively M = 0.67 (SD = 0.98) in the goal promoting situation)
are within the situational accountability / safety-goal scenario (Scenario 4, road obstacle). The same
interaction effect was true for the fright emotion, which was at the highest level in scenario 4
(M = 2.43; SD = 1.83; χ 2 (1, 78) = 3.93; p< .047). The four situations are causing different emotions
based on their constituent factors, but the mapping is not as clear as stated in the literature (Smith &
Lazarus, 1993; Kuppens et al., 2007) due to a lack of impact of the goal-blocking factor (see Figure 2).
5"
4"
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Anger!
S" P" S" P" S" P" S" P"
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3"
2"
1"
0"
Contempt!
S" P" S" P" S" P" S" P"
Arrival" Security" Arrival" Security"
Arrival" Security" Arrival" Security"
Incongruent"
Congruent"
Incongruent"
Congruent"
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4"
3"
2"
1"
0"
Anxiety!
S" P" S" P" S" P" S" P"
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4"
3"
2"
1"
0"
Fright!
S" P" S" P" S" P" S" P"
Arrival" Security" Arrival" Security"
Arrival" Security" Arrival" Security"
Incongruent"
Congruent"
Incongruent"
Congruent"
Figure 2: Relation between emotional intensity and situational characteristics (S = situational blame; P
= Personal blame)
3.3.3 Determinants of the Drivers’ Emotions: Personal Factors
The impact of demographic, driving and personality related scales and items on the four selected
emotions was analysed with a generalized linear model. Participants stated their emotional status at
four times and, therefore, the values were combined. Due to the zero-inflated distribution of contempt,
anxiety and fright a compound Poisson distribution was observed and employed for further analysis.
Anger showed a normal distribution which allowed the assumption of linear relationships. Gender,