Comparison of Drivers’ Aggression Frequency on and off the Road According to the Propensity to Experience Anger behind the Wheel

Abstract

AbstractAn important question in the study of driving anger is whether drivers express anger the same way on and off the road. With the aim of analyzing the between-group and within-group differences in a heterogeneous sample of 157 drivers divided in high, moderate and low–driving anger, four ways of expressing anger were assessed (verbally, physically, displacedly and adaptatively), both in general and behind the wheel. The between-group results showed that high anger drivers scored higher than low angered in all types of desadaptative expression on the road (h2 = .08 – .16) as well as in the physical (h2 = .06) and displaced (h2 = .10) ways off the road. The within-group comparisons evidenced high equivalence in each of the three groups about the preference of anger expressions on and off the road, concluding the apparent equivalence of the behavior in all the contexts. Clinical and road safety implications are discussed.