نقش مشکلات در تنظیم احساسات بر روی رفتار رانندگی

Abstract The present study tested associations among difficulties in emotion regulation and driving styles. One-hundred and thirty seven Argentinean drivers completed self-report measures of difficulties in emotion regulation and driving styles. As expected, greater difficulties in different types of emotion regulation abilities were related to anxious, angry, dissociative and risky driving. By contrast, lesser difficulties in regulating emotions were associated with careful driving. Stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed a differential contribution of specific types of emotion regulation abilities to each driving style. Importance of assessing emotional skills in candidates’ examination to obtain/ renewal driving license and emotion regulation based-interventions for drivers with maladaptive driving behaviors is emphasized. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.

Introduction Traffic accidents constitute a global social and economic problem; around 1.24 million people die every year on the world’s roads and another 20 to 50 million suffer nonfatal injuries due road traffic crashes. Road traffic injuries are currently the eighth leading cause of death around the world, the first cause of death for young people aged 15-29 years old and result in considerable financial costs, especially to developing economies. In this regard, the devastating effects of traffic crashes are concerned not only with global public health but also with sustainable development (World Health Organization [WHO], 2013). Although certainly there are many factors that cause traffic crashes (see Haddon, 1980), it has been commonly acknowledged that human factor plays a more important role beyond other factors such as vehicle, road, etc (Rumar, 1990; United States General Accounting Office, 2003; Wang, 1995). Consequently, a particular interest has been shown to drivers’ behaviors (AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, 1997). Research in this domain has been primarily concerned in identifying variables which may influence accident involvement and risk-taking behavior in traffic (Ulleberg & Rundmo, 2003). In this context, Elander, West and French (1993) argued that car accident liability is associated with driving skill and driving style. Driving skill refers to the capability of drivers to maintain control over the vehicle and respond in an adaptively way to complex traffic situations. This skill is assumed to increase with practice or training. By style they referred to the ways drivers choose to drive or to their habitual driving mode, including features such as speed, headway, and trait levels of attentiveness and assertiveness, and is expected to be influenced by attitudes and beliefs regarding driving, as well as by more general needs and values. In an effort to provide a conceptualization and measurement of a person’s habitual driving style, Taubman-Ben-Ari, Mikulincer and Gillath (2004) distinguished among eight different driving styles in which individuals may usually engage in: (1) the dissociative driving style, which reflects the tendency to be distracted while driving and to commit driving errors due to this distraction; (2) the anxious driving style, which refers to the proneness to feel anxiety and distress during driving and to express lack of security about his or her driving skills; (3) the risky driving style, which relates to thrill seeking while driving, deliberate violation of safe driving norms and the tendency to engage in risky behaviors such as tailgate other drivers, race with other cars, illegal passing, and so on; (4) the angry driving style, which consists of the tendency to feel irritable, angry and to behave aggressively towards other drivers, such as cursing or flashing lights; (5) the high-velocity driving style, which involves the tendency to drive fast and to express signs of time pressure during driving; (6) the distress-reduction driving style, which refers to the tendency to engage in relaxing activities during driving in order to reduce distress feelings, such as meditate; (7) the patient driving style, which reflects the tendency to be courteous and respectful towards other drivers, to feel no time pressure during driving, and to display calmness while driving; and (8) the careful driving style, which represents the tendency to be careful while driving including planning ahead, attention to road, and keeping the traffic rules. Further empirical researches (Poó, Taubman-Ben-Ari, Ledesma & Díaz-Lázaro, 2013; Taubman-Ben-Ari & Yehil, 2012) showed that were more appropriate to consider the risky and the high-velocity styles into a single driving style, namely, the risky style. In a similar vein, the patient and careful driving were merged together to represent the careful style. Accordingly, the construct of driving style was defined by six different dimensions that are, however, theoretically consistent with the broad domains originally proposed. Accumulate research (Groeger & Rothengatter, 1998; Harré, 2000; Miller & Taubman-Ben-Ari, 2010; Poó et al., 2013; Taubman-Ben-Ari et al., 2004; Ulleberg & Rundmo 2003) indicates that there are a host of factors influencing on driving styles, including personality (e.g., sensation seeking, anxiety, aggression), cognitive (e.g., risk perception, self-efficacy), attitudinal (e.g., risk seeking), social (e.g., intergenerational transmission) and demographic variables (e.g., age and gender). With regard to the latter, is has been consistently demonstrated that women tend to exhibit more dissociative, anxious, and careful driving, while men tend to display higher risky and angry driving. Moreover, less adaptively driving styles (i.e., risky, dissociative, anxious and aggressive) were consistently found to diminish with age and, conversely, more adaptive ways of driving (i.e., careful) were positively associated with age. Additionally, recent studies revealed the impact of emotions on drivers’ attitudes and behaviors. For instance, anxiety was significantly associated with excitement-seeking and risky driving behavior (Oltedal & Rundmo, 2006). Moreover, driver rage was significantly related to speeding (Begg & Langley, 2004; Deffenbacher, Deffenbacher, Lynch & Richards, 2003). In addition, negative emotions while driving were associated with elevated risk perception, while positive ones were linked to lower risk perception (Hu, Xie & Li, 2013). Finally, Chan and Singhal (2013) demonstrated that emotions modulated drivers’ attention reorienting away from task driving to emotional stimuli, resulting in decreased attention and information processing critical for driving performance. Clearly, these findings suggest that emotions can be detrimental for safe driving, being necessary to regulate them. It is widely assumed that emotions are not irresistible forces that exert a sweeping influence on behavior. Rather, people can regulate their emotions and actually they engage in some form of emotion regulation almost all the time (Davidson, 1998). Emotion regulation refers to the different set of automatic and controlled processes through emotions are regulated (Gross & Thompson, 2007). These processes may target emotions at different points in the emotiongenerative process, such us situation, attention, appraisal and emotions response components, and diminish, increase or maintain emotion, depending on an individual`s goals. An alternative model of emotion regulation based on emotional responses was developed by Gratz and Roemer (2004). According to this model, emotion regulation can be defined as a set of different, albeit interrelated, abilities including emotional awareness, emotional clarity, emotional acceptance, impulse control, ability to engage in desired goals while experiencing negative emotions and the ability to use flexibly and situationally appropriate strategies to modulate emotional responses as desired. The relative absence of any or all of these abilities would indicate the presence of difficulties in emotion regulation. Emotion regulation is essential to effective human functioning (see Gross, 1998; Koole 2009, for a comprehensive review). In addition, difficulties in emotion regulation are associated with poorer self-regulation leading to maladaptive behaviors such as substance abuse, binge eating and the tendency to risk taking (Cooper, Shaver & Collins, 1998; Haves, Wilson, Gifford, Follette, & Strosahl, 1996; Whiteside et al., 2007). Related to driving behavior, these findings could suggest that difficulties in emotion regulation may influence on maladaptive driving behaviors (e.g., aggressive, risky) and, conversely, the ability to regulate emotions may be involved in more adjusted driving behaviors (e.g., careful). In line with these assumptions, Feldman, Greeson, Renna and Robbins-Monteith (2011) found that difficulties in emotion regulation were associated with greater frequency of text-messaging while driving. By contrast, Arnau-Sabatés, Sala-Roca & Jariot-Garcia (2012) reported that emotion regulation abilities were negatively related to risky driving behaviors such speeding, taking alcohol and drugs, distraction and fatigue, and risk-taking tendency. The current research According to previous review difficulties in emotion regulation appears to be related to risky driving. However, to our best knowledge no study has yet systematically and comprehensively explored the association between difficulties in emotion regulation and different driving styles. Thus, the goals of the current study were to: 1) examine the relationships between difficulties in emotion regulation and driving styles; 2) ascertain the difficulties in emotion regulation abilities that better predict each driving style. Based on both theoretical assumptions and prior research, we hypothesized that higher difficulties in emotion regulation are positively and significantly related to risky, angry, dissociative and anxious driving. In opposition, we hypothesized that lower difficulties in regulating emotions are positively associated to distress reduction and careful driving.

Results Means, standard deviations and correlations among variables are presented in Table 1. As seen in the table, we found positive correlations among all DERS subscales and angry driving, except for lack of emotional awareness. Both dissociative and anxious driving also positively correlated with almost all DERS subscales; the only exception was impulse control difficulties. In the same way, several positive correlations were found between impulse control difficulties, non acceptance of emotional responses, difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior and risky driving. On the other hand, careful driving was negatively related with lack of emotional awareness and lack of emotional clarity, while distress reduction driving did not show any significant relationship with DERS subscales. Finally, age negatively correlated with risky, dissociative and angry driving. Table 1. Descriptive statistics and correlations among variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1. Impulse control difficulties 12.31 5.65 - 2. Limited access to emotion regulation strategies 19.27 6.46 .63** − 3. Nonnaceptance of emotional responses 13.52 5.93 .48** .61** − 4. Difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior 13.25 4.56 .57** .56** .40** − 5. Lack of emotional awareness 22.00 4.70 .26** .14 .12 .09 − 6. Lack of emotional clarity 10.01 3.70 .41** 44** .36** .33** .25** - 7. Risky style 20.41 9.35 .38** .10 .20* .17* .01 .12 - 8. Dissociative style 22.78 6.86 .13 .25** 2g** 32** 22** .31** .24** _ 9. Careful style 28.86 4.77 −.11 −.12 −.07 −.14 −.30** −.24** −.35** −32** − 10. Anxious style 8.60 3.42 .12 22** .26** .20* .22** .20* .11 .55** −.09 − 11. Distress reduction style 14.57 3.2 .11 −.05 −.02 .07 .07 .00 .42** .05 .02 −.07 − 12. Angry style 17.05 5.82 .41** .22** .26** .27** −.02 .22** .69** .25** −.40** .11 .31** − 13. Age 36.82 12.57 .02 .05 .17* −.15 .12 .01 −.21* −.25** .13 −.12 −.01 −.18* − ** p<.01 * p<.05 Table options In order to analyze potential gender differences, a one-way MANOVA was performed. Results indicated a significant main effect of gender; multivariate F (12, 133) = 2.00; p = .005; η2= .16. More specifically, univariate analysis revealed gender main effect in risky (F (1, 133) = 6.29, p = .002, η2 = .09; Ms = 22.62 and 17.40 for males and females, respectively), anxious (F (1, 133) = 3.57, p = .031, η2 = .05; Ms = 8.08 and 9.43 for males and females, respectively) and distress reduction styles (F (1, 133) = 10.12; p = .000, η2 = .13; Ms = 15.53 and 13.16 for males and females, respectively). To examine most relevant predictors of different driving styles, we conducted several stepwise multiple regression analysis with DERS subscales as predictors and driving styles as dependent variables. We chose this method because the present study had an exploratory goal. Therefore, stepwise multiple regressions allow the exclusion of redundant variables and the preservation of all significant variables (Cohen, Cohen, West & Aiken, 2003). Considering that correlation and MANOVA analysis showed a significant influence of age and gender on various driving styles, these variables were introduced in first step as covariates. A model was created for each dependent variable (Table 2). Results showed that impulse control difficulties (β = 49; p < .001) and limited access to emotion regulation strategies (β = .23; p < .05) predicted risky driving. In addition, nonacceptance of emotional responses (β = .28; p < .01), difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior (β = .21; p < .05) and lack of emotional awareness (β = .19; p < .05) predicted dissociative driving. On the other hand, lack of emotional awareness (β = .27; p < .01) and nonacceptance of emotional responses (β = .26; p < .05) were involved in the prediction of anxious driving, while impulse control difficulties (β = .41; p < .001) was involved in the prediction of aggressive driving. Finally, lack of emotional awareness (β = -.29; p < .01) negatively predicted careful driving. Table 2. Summary of regression models Dependent variable: risky style R2 Δ R2 F p β p Step 1 .138 .138 10.60 .000 Gender −.30 .000 Age −.23 .004 Step 2 .307 .169 5.17 .000 Impulse control diffculties .49 .000 Age −.26 .001 Gender −.24 .002 Limited access to emotion regulation .23 .019 Strategies Dependent variable: dissociative style R2 Δ R2 F p β p Step 1 .067 .067 4.80 .010 Age −.24 .004 Step 2 .293 .226 6.76 .000 Nonnaceptance of emotional responses .28 .004 Age −.24 .003 Interference in goal-directed behavior .21 .033 Lack of emotional awareness .19 .028 Dependent variable: anxious style R2 Δ R2 F p β p Step 2 .185 .161 4.19 .001 Lack of emotional awareness .27 .004 Nonnaceptance of emotional responses .26 .015 Dependent variable: angry style R2 Δ R2 F p β p Step 1 .061 .061 4.31 .015 −.19 .025 Age .250 .189 5.32 .000 −.17 .046 Gender .41 .000 Step 2 −.20 .012 Impulse control diffculties Age Dependent variable: careful style R2 Δ R2 F p β p Step2 .152 .129 3.21 .006 −.29 .002 Lack of Emotional awareness Note: age and gender covariates introduced in frst step were not statistically signifcant (p>.05) Note: age and gender covariates introduced in frst step were not statistically signifcant (p>.05)