Anger amongst Turkish drivers: Driving Anger Scale and its adapted, long and short version

Abstract

Driver anger is a situation which has a negative impact on behaviours of drivers in traffic, distracts attention of drivers and causes the violation of rules and dangerous behaviours. Recently adopted regulations in Turkey have revealed the necessity to investigate the causes of violations in a framework of psychological evaluation. One aim of this study was to contribute to the development of psychological tools which could be used for psychological evaluation of drivers. To this aim, the reliability of Driving Anger Scale (DAS) for Turkish drivers, originally developed by Deffenbacher et al. [Deffenbacher, J.L., Oetting, E.R, Lynch, R.S., 1994. Development of a driving anger scale. Psychological Reports 74, 83–91], was investigated. The sample of the study included 200 Turkish drivers. The factor structure of the DAS replicated with Turkish driving. A number of relationships between DAS scores and some psychological symptoms (anxiety, hostility, etc.), and trait anger were also found. A 14-item short form of DAS which was correlated with DAS subscales, Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), anger symptoms and anger-eliciting situations was developed. The results showed that DAS was a reliable and valid scale for Turkish culture.