Driving anger and its relationships with type A behavior patterns and trait anger: Differences between professional and non-professional drivers

Abstract

The present study examined the types of situations that caused Chinese professional and non-professional drivers to become angry and investigated the differences in driving-elicited anger, considering the influences of type A behavior pattern and trait anger between the two groups. The 20-item revised Driving Anger Scale (DAS) was used to assess a sample of 232 drivers (57% professional, 43% non-professional). The non-professional drivers reported significantly higher levels of anger than the professional drivers on the overall Driving Anger Scale (DAS) and the traffic obstructions and discourtesy subscales. In both groups, the preferred driving speeds were positively related to driving anger. Furthermore, drivers with a type A personality exhibited higher overall driving anger scores and higher anger scores in response to traffic obstructions and slow driving than drivers with a type B personality. Trait anger was significantly related to driving anger in both groups. In the non-professional group, type A behavior patterns (TABPs) and time hurry (TH) were positively correlated with anger evoked by slow driving. In the professional group, TABPs, TH and competitive hostility (CH) were positively related to driving anger, and the TABPs exerted an indirect effect on driving anger by mediating the influence of trait anger. Overall, these findings provide a theoretical basis for implementing targeted interventions for driving anger in both professional and non-professional drivers.

Anger while driving in Mexico City

“…https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223048.g004 As for the DAS survey, Mexico City drivers show a higher score than Chinese drivers (professional and non-professional) [29] in all sub-scales. More results can be compared for this scale.…”

“…The third survey is a modified version of the Driving Anger Scale (DAS) [18,29] which is useful to know the level of anger driver's experience. This survey is divided into four subscales.…”

“…The last subscale, Slow Driving (SL), has three items. The options to answer any question from the DAS survey range from 1 to 5; 1-None at all, 2-A little, 3-Some, 4-Much, and 5-Very much [18,29].…”

“…Over the years, other instruments have been created for understanding emotions and behavior displayed by driver's [18,[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. For example, in 2002 Deffenbacher et al created the Driving Anger Expression Inventory (DAX) and in 2003 Dula et al, introduced the Dula Dangerous Driving Index (DDDI).…”

“…DAS, DAX, DDDI and other related instruments had also been used for the analysis of drivers response according to gender, age and work conditions [22,23,29,34,[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58]. For example, Sullman found that females display a higher level of anger due to risky driving on the 33-items DAS survey [48].…”