Mindfulness Based Cognitive Group Therapy vs Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy as a Treatment for Driving Anger and Aggression in Iranian Taxi Drivers

Toktam Kazemeini,Bahramali Ghanbari-E-Hashem-Abadi,Asieh Safarzadeh

doi:10.4236/psych.2013.48091

Toktam Kazemeini, Bahramali Ghanbari-E-Hashem-Abadi + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2013.48091

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Journal: Psychology	Publication Date: Jan 1, 2013
Citations: 33	License type: CC BY 4.0

Abstract

The frequent experience of anger while driving is associated with great rates of aggressive and dangerous behaviors. The experience of anger driving can have repercussions that extend beyond the vehicle and can be harmful to the individual driver and other drivers that are in the same road. Thus, the present research aims to compare the effectiveness of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Group Therapy (MBCGT) with Cognitive-Behavior Group Therapy (CBGT) on reducing anger and aggression while driving. The experimental design was pretest, posttest and follow up with randomized assignment. The sample of this study included 20 male taxi drivers who were selected through accessible sampling and participated voluntarily in the research. Participants were randomly divided into two experimental groups. The first experimental group received MBCGT and CBGT was conducted in the second experimental group. Both groups were tested three times (i.e., pretest, posttest, and one-month follow-up). The study tools used were Driving Anger Scale (DAS) and Driving Anger Expression questionnaire (DAX). Data were analyzed using SPSS 16 software with covariance analysis. The results showed that MBCGT in comparison to CBGT led to significant reduction in driving anger, aggressive expression of driving anger and significant increase in adaptive/constructive expression of driving anger. These findings have been discussed theoretically and their importance in clinical importance.

Highlights

Over the past several years interest in angry and aggressive driving behaviors has increased
Most of the treatment studies conducted have focused on examining the effectiveness of some techniques of cognitive behavior therapy such as relaxation training, cognitive restructuring, and exposure techniques (Deffenbacher et al, 2000; Deffenbacher, Filetti, Lynch, Dahlen, & Oetting, 2002; Galovski & Blanchard, Malta, & Freidenberg, 2003; Richards, Deffenbacher, Feletti, Lynch, & Kogan, 2001, Rimm, DeGroot, Boord, Heiman, & Dillow, 1971)
One study reported that relaxation training techniques showed a reduction on certain measures of driving anger and aggression while the same techniques were not shown to be as effective in another study (Deffenbacher et al, 2000; Deffenbacher et al, 2002)

Summary

Introduction

Over the past several years interest in angry and aggressive driving behaviors has increased. Most of the treatment studies conducted have focused on examining the effectiveness of some techniques of cognitive behavior therapy such as relaxation training, cognitive restructuring, and exposure techniques (Deffenbacher et al, 2000; Deffenbacher, Filetti, Lynch, Dahlen, & Oetting, 2002; Galovski & Blanchard, Malta, & Freidenberg, 2003; Richards, Deffenbacher, Feletti, Lynch, & Kogan, 2001, Rimm, DeGroot, Boord, Heiman, & Dillow, 1971). Similar inconsistencies were observed in cognitive restructuring and exposure techniques (Deffenbacher et al, 2002; Galovski & Blanchard, 2002; Richards et al, 2001) Besides to these partial studies, Galovski and Blanchard (2002) found that a cognitive behavioral treatment helped reduce driving anger and aggression. Cognitive behavior therapy is based on the assumption that a reorganization of one’s self-statements will result in a corresponding reorganiza-

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