Abstract
Habitual offender drivers are required to recover points lost on their driving license by attending reeducation courses, an experience that may, upon reflection of the incident in question, induce feelings of guilt or shame for the infractions they committed. A simulated driving task studied optimistic offender drivers to analyze the extent to which the controllability of the situational context influenced their use of internal and external factors in counterfactual thoughts and emotions such as guilt and shame. The study involved 160 drivers, of whom 54 were categorized as repeat offender drivers while 106 drivers attended courses for advanced professional driving licenses. The participants drove along a route in a driving simulator, which had been previously adjusted for the difficulty to generate a perception of high or low control. Based on the outcome obtained by the participants in this stage, each driver had to report which resources they required to improve their outcomes. Different factor ANOVAs were used to analyze our findings. The results indicated that optimistic offenders, unlike other groups (i.e., optimistic non-offender and pessimistic non-offender), thought that their results could have been better if external factors had been present (i.e., upward counterfactuals), both under conditions of high and low control. They believed their results would have been worse had it not been for their internal resources (i.e., downward counterfactuals), especially under conditions of low control. Concerning emotions of guilt and shame, offender optimists had the lowest values in both conditions compared with the other groups. We may contend that optimistic offender drivers thought they could have obtained better outcomes if external factors had been involved. In the low control condition, they justified that if it were not for such internal skills, their results could have been worse. When they generated such thoughts, the emotions of guilt and shame were minimal.
Highlights
Most traffic accidents are the result of risky behaviors performed by drivers
The offender group was formed by drivers who, with the purpose of regaining their licenses or the points deducted for their repeated offenses, were attending courses on road intervention, awareness, and rehabilitation as stipulated within the framework of the points-based license system applied by the Directorate General for Traffic (DGT) in Spain
Additional ANOVAs were carried out to analyze whether the study groups presented differences in the total number of counterfactual thoughts and to analyze the mistakes made during the simulator task
Summary
Most traffic accidents are the result of risky behaviors performed by drivers. Cognitive-motivational theoretical models of traffic psychology analyze how drivers perceive risk and make decisions. Experimental evidence suggests that a relatively stable cognitive bias tends to exist among drivers, leading them to determine how likely they will be to have an accident (Harré et al, 2005). In other cases, when faced with a challenging situation, drivers may adopt driving skills focused on elements such as technique, ability, and mastery. Such skills explain the subjective perception the driver maintains regarding the perceived risk of being involved in Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org del Valle
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