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DRIVING WITH EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Introduction

This survey is designed to assess many important affective and cognitive behaviors of drivers. The sub-parts include the following driver personality traits:

1. AB: Attribution bias in driving exchanges
2. ES: Emotional self-control behind the wheel
3. IM: Impulsivity as a driver
4. LC: Locus of control of driving events
5. PU: Pugnacity as a driver
6. SA: Scenario analysis in driver choices
7. SE: Self-efficacy feelings as a driver
8. SR: Social responsibility as a driver
9. TE: Total Score for Driving with Emotional Intelligence

Driving with emotional intelligence means having a positive profile on these driver personality components. Drivers are assessed by Distance from a Desirable Driver Profile. This distance may be computed as a Geometric Mean (=sum of squares of differences for each item divided by the number of items, then square rooted). Drivers can  rank order themselves on the basis of this Distance Score—starting with small scores as the best (closest to Desirable Driver Profile) and large scores as the worst (further away from Desirable Driver Profile).

The Desirable Driver Profile, or DDP, is theoretically specifiable but this may not be enough. Further, different ethnic or cultural contexts may require different theoretical predictions. It is necessary therefore to empirically discover what the Desirable Driver Profile is for a specific population and context.

Prior attempts to find a relation between personality traits and accident proneness led to the conclusion that one cannot find correlations higher than .3, which gives a predictive power of less than 10% better than chance (50%).   This result has discouraged further research in this area.  We take the position that the research community needs to go further with it, not abandon it.

1. The first important change is to introduce valid driving items rather than general clinical personality traits.  This we have done in the present survey battery.
2. Second, we take the position that  the driving items must cover the three domains of the driver:  affective, cognitive, sensorimotor.   Our items are distributed across these three.
3. Third, we define valid items as those that authentically engage the habitual thinking patterns of drivers and gives them a genuine problem or scenario to think about and solve.
4. Fourth, we define the effectiveness or predictive power of an item as its ability to evoke known social psychological dilemmas or issues.  We have done this by writing items that create a focus around 8 known important social psychological issues.  These are:

In the ensuing weeks and months, we shall publish here the results of how the items are being filled and how different profiles are related to gender, age, experience, work, and type of car.  Check back in a couple of weeks.

Results

AB: Attribution bias in driving exchanges

It's normal to try to figure things out when something happens:  what's going on, who is doing it, why, and so on.  Typically we assess incoming information and come to a logical conclusion.  When it comes to driving, our research has revealed that drivers often ignore telling information and come to an illogical conclusion, or an unfounded one.   The following items describe some typical driving situations that all drivers could be exposed to.  They ought to be able to agree or disagree with conclusions based on those facts.  That's what the percentages represent:  how many people or what proportion of respondents picked to agree or disagree.  The blue answer is always better than the red answer.  By looking at these percentages we can find out how drivers reason about normal situations they may encounter.  Consider these   items and the results.

The vast majority of drivers agree that one is not supposed to close the gap and deny entry to another car, and a driver who does that "needs better training to avoid such errors" (item 4) and learn to become   "more alert" or cooperative (item 2).  About  half of the respondents agree with the idea that making such an error turns you into  'a power hungry idiot who enjoys offending others' (items 1 and 3).  What conclusions can we draw from this pattern?

If half of the drivers on the road think that the other half are power hungry idiots who enjoy annoying you, then we have a serious problem on our highways.  Note that a majority of people disagree with the explanation that the driver who closes the gap does it "by habit, not even realizing it" (item 2).  And yet this is answer is more actually more likely, as you yourself can know by observing your own driving more closely.  You will find that it's a common thing to do--unconsciously closing the gap when you notice a car wanting to switch to your lane ahead of you.  When we asked people to tell us in their own words what they thought of other drivers and the way they drive, we received confirmation of this cynicism.   Here are some samples quotations:  Listen America, your drivers speak, think, and feel this about one another:

1. Drivers are macho idiots acting like idiots talking on cell phones trying to impress girlfriends.
2. For the most part, people are tired of being taken advantage of, or dealing with idiots, so they take it out while driving.
3. Some are just plain idiots, some don't know any better and some are selfish.
4. People are idiots driving slow in the passing lane or pulling out in front of me and then going slow.
5. Many crashes are caused by people who can't stand not to be first and drive like a pure idiot. Then you have two idiots, than three, then ...well you know the results. One idiots leads to another.
6. Again, it's not aggressiveness that bothers me. It's the fact that people are stupid idiots who don't' know how to drive.
7. For the most part, people are tired of being taken advantage of, or dealing with idiots, so they take it out while driving.
8. They are plain old selfish self-centered jerks with no common sense and with an  inflated sense of importance.
9. They just want to get out of there as quickly as possible and just being jerks.
10. They're in a hurry and they know they can get away with being jerks because they can always zoom away from you, a generally more angry and irritable attitude among people today.
11. They are too busy thinking of themselves. They are most likely complete jerks in real life, too.
12. I think they just want to be faster than you and they are stupid jerks who think that they are better than you because of what they drive or who they are.
13. People driving too slow drive me crazy. Old people are the main people who drive like idiots.
14. People are idiots and don't think before they do things..... they seem to think that they are the only people on the road.
15. As a semi driver, this is the safest way to ensure blocking all available roadway in order for the idiots behind me to not get themselves crushed under my trailer. There's always at least one fool a week who tries to get between myself and the curb.
16. A man bumped and scraped my car who didn't feel bad enough about it. I was cool about it and thought it was minor but when that jerk took off without going to the side and checking it out, I just had to yell out my feelings.
17. Sometimes I try to let people pull out in front of me on a busy street. there are no stop lights and it takes a while for traffic to open and allow them to get out. Unfortunately, there are idiots who don't understand why I am stopping and the go around to pass me. Usually , the idiot has to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting the car pulling out, and he is stuck there, half in my lane, half in the other lane, blocking traffic.
18. You should never let other driver's bad habits change your own driving habits. That's why I wouldn't speed up for some idiot on my rear bumper, especially if I was already speeding, which is likely.
19. I'd love to drive the 75 or 85 mph that I did when I learned how to drive in the early seventies. The problem is that there are too many fools and idiots on the road today. I may be one of them, who knows?
20. I am already traveling faster than the law wants me to and now this jerk wants me to go faster because he wants to go faster
21. Poor guy, he just lost his girlfriend and  minding his own business, riding his bike and then some jerk harasses him  and then the police ignores his call. I would feel depress and upset too  if that happened to me.
22. It seemed he had a hate for speed bumps, and boy did the squad car look like a ship tossed about in a storm. He did not appear to be going to an emergency, he seemed to just be in a hurry and hated the bumps like everyone else, except the jerks who wanted them.
23. Boy, some clown was driving to work, in the right lane, taking his dear sweet time in rush-hour, and guess what this *non-aggressive* driver was doing? Yes, as the title implies, this jerk had full-sized headphones on and was probably listening to Strauss and the "Blue Danube".
24. Today I was on the I-60 freeway (in LA) and came upon a mid 70's ford van (all crapped out) doing 55 (this in a section of freeway clearly marked 60MPH) in the left lane (of a 4 lane PLUS carpool lane) freeway. As cars would come up behind this jerk, they would flash their lights, tailgate and finally decide to pass on the right (not always possible, since traffic in the other lanes was flowing faster than jerkoff).
25. Jerkoff responded by flashing his brights.
26. Jerkoff pulls back into the fast lane (cutting off a car overtaking him doing 75).
27. Even luckier, the idiot with the gun finally decided to pull over and confront the couple, who were following him until police arrived.
28. The SUV - Sport Utility Vehicle - is our land yacht, our tank, our 5,000 pounds of armor protecting us from road rage and pileups and that idiot hugging our bumper.
29. Conditions can never improve if we just keep jamming more and more stupid drivers on the road, and then tout about the nastiness of road rage, and how driving slower will solve everything.
30. It  gets hairy when some idiot decides he wants to get in that left lane and do 50.
31. Since safety zealots like to define "speeding" in terms of the posted limit, their idiot followers feel like they're safe if they're driving below the posted limit.
32. Speed doesn't kill, the idiot that doesn't know what he's doing while going that fast does.
33. A heavily laden van, poorly maintained, and steered by a distracted idiot is considered legal at 1 mph under the limit. On the other hand, a well-maintained performance car driven by an alert, capable driver is subject to legal penalty at 1 mph over the posted speed.
34. I have found since I started driving from the latter perspective that my sheet metal doesn't end up looking like a twisted mess anymore because some idiot that I thought saw me, didn't.
35. I just thank my lucky stars  drive a 1976 Chevy Nova with a V8 and dual exhaust so I have the power  need just in case some idiot pulls up on my rear bumper on the freeway and refuses to get off because s/he doesn't think that my 80 in the 70 zone is fast enough. for them I slow down a bit, shift and leave 'em eating dust.
36. Truck drivers get a bad rap. Idiots in cars make the pros job hard.
37. Well since speeding up didn't help I slowed to the speed limit. the jerk just started giving me his brights and swerved into the oncoming lane. My question is how do you respond to maniacs on the road when there is nowhere to go?
38. Sometimes we innocently make that one move that doesn't sit well with some jerk on the highway, a driver who takes offense at your having passed them and pulled in front of them (even if you do so safely and, say, 50 yds ahead of them).
39. I'm fine. It's the Idiot in front of me.

These are just a sample from our collection of how drivers discuss each other.  According to the driver personality survey, half of the drivers see nothing wrong with this type of cynicism, while the other half do. 

Here are some more results:

The following selection of letters gives you a fuller context of how drivers talk about one another.  Are you one of them?  Perhaps we all need to become more aware of our oppositional mental state behind the wheel.  One nice surprise is that even though it feels like a hardship to give up one's automotive cynicism, this sense of hardship is only an appearance.  It feels like you're giving up something by not retaliating.  There is a certain social pressure to express your righteous indignation to make sure they're not taking advantage of you, or even worse, they don't make you look like  a wimp.  But these are symbolic events.  You don't actually become a wimp and a loser when you choose not to retaliate.  Neither is it the case that you're putting yourself in greater danger by allowing this other driver to get away with it.  The fact is that you have no control over the mental states of other drivers.  Using an oppositional or confrontational approach actually reduces your influence over the situation since you don't know how the other driver is going to respond.  You're actually giving up control when you retaliate.  In the letters that follow, the writers call the other drivers jerks, idiots, numbskulls, morons, boneheads, and so on.  Why do they call them names?   Because it's the first step to retaliation. 

Here is a detailed explanation and disagreement sent in by a correspondent:

Results from a NHTSA study:  According to a random national sample of drivers surveyed by telephone  in 1998:

"Drivers who felt it was more dangerous to drive now compared to a year ago were asked to elaborate.  One driver in five (20%) specifically mentioned careless or inattentive drivers. This was followed by faster drivers or speeders (18%); aggressive, reckless and risky driving (14%); young drivers coming of age (10%); and drivers on alcohol or drugs (10%)."

The above shows that 30% of the nation, or 54 million drivers, thought there was an increase in aggressive driving from 1997 to 1998.  Twice as many drivers thought it remained the same.

"Almost two drivers in five (38%) in Region VIII (Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming) felt drivers in their area were driving either a lot more aggressively (16%) or somewhat more aggressively (22%) than they were a year ago. One-third (34%) of the drivers in Region X (Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington) also felt drivers in their area were more aggressive. Conversely, drivers in Region VII (Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska) were the least willing to say drivers in their area were driving either a lot more aggressively (10%) or somewhat more aggressively (14%) than they were last year."

The letters reveal the pattern of thinking of drivers about each other.  About half of the population thinks with a negative or oppositional attribution bias, which means that they choose a personally derogatory explanation of another driver's actions when these actions are perceived as threatening.  Let's look at the differences between these two types of mental states:  one negative and oppositional, the other positive and cooperative.  The negative oppositional mode of thinking and emoting is the normal (culturally sanctioned) starting point for a driver's career.

Read down the Symptoms column and try to identify the attribution bias.  For example in behavior area 4, Being Over-critical, a person might say or think:, Look at that idiot who forgets to turn off his signal.  This is not an objective statement.  It has two parts.  He forgot to turn off the signal, is objective.  He is an idiot, is subjective.  It is not an explanation but a put down.  Its purpose is to insult or punish as a way of retaliation.  Similarly with the other statements.  Go over each and try to isolate the objective part and the subjective part.

Consider the examples in behavior area 2, Righteous Indignation.  Why does a person say, Nobody gives me the finger and gets away with it.  The individual feels insulted and wants to retaliate.  The justification for the planned punishment is that you need to protect your self-worth which was attacked when the other driver insulted you.  This way of thinking is symbolic and subjective, not real or actual.  If you ignore the insult, it doesn't mean the other is getting away with it.  It only means that you choose to not to respond in kind.

Now let's look at some other symptoms of confrontational thinking behind the wheel.  Here are the results for remaining three items for attribution bias:

Let's look at number 7.  It's evident that the vast majority of drivers can figure out that if you get into a fight you share the blame no matter who started it, as long as it's clear that you had a choice to stay out of it.   People understand that if you yell at someone, a fight can start.  So it doesn't matter if later you claim you didn't mean to start a fight.  Note that 17% still don't understand this--that's 1 in every 6 drivers!  They need more training in how to think appropriately about driving situations.

Item 6 is a kind of paranoia to which drivers are vulnerable since driving situations are often unclear.  It's possible that a driver might intentionally slow you down and get a kick out of it, but the fact that we think this way every time, or most of the time, is a sure indicator that it is paranoia, not reality.  Ask yourself whether you get your kicks by intentionally slowing others down.  It's always the other driver who tries to do you in.  That's not reality.   But I assuming that mental state, it becomes a false reality, that is, a delusion.

Item 5 splits the population down the middle.  The logic of the situation is that you don't really know why a driver does something.   Keep track of how many times you think a driver is going to do one thing, then does another.  It happens often.  So the fact is, we're not very good at explaining why a driver has honked (maybe the hand slipped, maybe they saw someone and are trying to catch their attention, maybe they're fooling around with each other inside the car, maybe the horn has a short, etc.).

The above Table shows that drivers have   three intelligences.  First, affective intelligence is the ability to care about the feelings of other drivers and it is called automotive sympathy.  It is grounded in one's morality and conscience.   Second, cognitive intelligence is the ability to understand the rights and needs of other drivers and is called automotive empathy.  Third, sensorimotor intelligence is the ability to act with civility, alertness, and caution towards other drivers and is called automotive excellence.  It is grounded in one's sense of safety, happiness and community.

It is important to realize that affective intelligence dominates the other two.  When we place ourselves in the mental state called automotive sympathy, we not only care about the feelings of other drivers, but we also understand them better.  Affective intelligence, which is the ability to make yourself care, produces the cognitive intelligence called automotive empathy.  This is the ability to understand the intentions and feelings of the other drivers.  The reverse is also true.  Choose to remain in an uncaring mental attitude, such as being cynical and thinking of other drivers as jerks, idiots, and morons, and you will deprive yourself of automotive empathy:  the ability to understand the emotions and reactions of other drivers.  So the two must go together, like a marriage.

Finally, when the automotive marriage of sympathy and empathy is consummated in the driver's mind, the consequences for the way we drive are truly remarkable.  The result is driving with sensorimotor intelligence, which is automotive excellence:  driving with safety, happiness, and community feelings.   Choose to remain with a lack of caring for other drivers, and you will become vulnerable to all sorts of illusions and delusions about the other driver's intentions, needs, and rights.  They will have little rights in your mind and their convenience and safety will take the backseat to your intentions, needs, and rights.  The consequences to your driving will be a lack of automotive excellence.  This is called aggressive driving and road rage.

So aggressive driving is a consequence of low sensorimotor intelligence (not being alert, taking dangerous risks, and ignoring civility).  These bad driving behaviors are the result of false thinking:  e.g., attribution bias ( as discussed above), and other delusions about what other drivers are doing (e.g., "cutting me off" instead of "needing to enter my lane").  Finally, these faulty thinking patterns are created to satisfy our automotive cynicism.  In other words, if we're willing to enjoy calling a driver jerk and moron, we're conditioning ourselves to faulty thinking about those drivers.  The result is aggressive driving.  We have a moral choice to make.  It starts with automotive sympathy, which is to make ourselves care about the other driver's convenience and feelings.  That brings understanding and correct thinking about the driver's intentions and reactions.  The two together bring about automotive excellence.

Driving psychology gives us the knowledge by which we can manage our driver personality as the task of driving is becoming increasingly complex making multiple demands on us--legal, economic, social, behavioral, and moral.

Other Survey Results:   Aggressive Driving in Relation to Gender, Age, and Type of Car

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