We compared two groups of aggressive drivers, those who met criteria for Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) (n=10) and comparable aggressive drivers who did not meet IED criteria (n=20), to a group of non-aggressive driving controls (n=20) on measures of psychological distress, anger, hostility, and Type A behavior as well as measures of aggressive driving and driving anger and their driving records. There were few differences between the aggressive drivers with IED and those without IED. The IED positive aggressive drivers endorsed more assaultiveness and resentment as well as more impatience and showed trends to have more hostility and angry temperament. When all aggressive drivers were compared to controls, differences emerged on anxiety, hostility, and anger as well as on measure specific to aggressive driving (competitiveness) and driving anger (at slow drivers and traffic obstructions).
Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED), is an understudied Axis I disorder (Monopolis & Lion, 1983, Felthous, Bryant, Wingerter, & Barratt, 1991 and McElroy, Hudson, Pope, Keck, & Aizley, 1992) among the broader category termed, Impulse Control Disorders. This point is echoed by authors of the few recent studies of IED such as McElroy, Soutullo, Beckman, Taylor, and Keck (1998), Mattes and Fink (1987) and Coccaro, Kavoussi, Berman, and Lish (1998). The reasons for this relative inattention could be its relative rarity (Felthous et al., 1991) or that individuals with this problem are more likely to be found in the criminal justice system than in the mental health system; that is, in the words of Lion (1992), they are ‘bad’, not ‘mad’.
Through recent work with aggressive drivers, we have found that about one-third of aggressive drivers, both those who are court-referred and those who are self-referred, meet DSM-IV (APA, 1994) criteria for IED. This paper compares aggressive drivers with IED to aggressive drivers without IED and to a non-aggressive driving control group along a number of psychological dimensions we thought might be relevant to understanding IED.
Intermittent Explosive Disorder. Patients (a) who periodically act very aggressively, resulting in serious assaultive acts or property damage; (b) whose degree of aggression is grossly out of proportion to any provocation or precipitating stressor; (c) and whose behavior cannot be better accounted for by other disorders, are diagnosed according to DSM-IV ( APA, 1994, p. 612) with Intermittent Explosive Disorder.
