Normative beliefs about breaking road safety rules and their relation to risk-taking

Abstract

Normative beliefs are proved to correlate significantly with behavioural intentions and behaviour [1–3], also driving behaviour [4,5]. This means, that normative beliefs about road safety might be directly related to driving behaviour. On the other hand, many research demonstrate that driving behaviour is well correlated with risk-taking. However, risk-taking and dealing with uncertainty is not a homogenous construct. As Blais and Weber argue, our proneness to take risk depends on the decision domain [6]. According to the authors, vehicle driving falls into the domain of health and safety. If so, normative beliefs about breaking legal road safety rules should correlate with risk-taking in the domain of health and safety. The aim of the study was to verify whether normative beliefs about breaking road safety rules are related to risk-taking, especially in the domain of health and safety. An online study on Polish drivers (N = 180; 114 female and 66 male) aged 19 - 81 (M = 33, SD = 12.25) was conducted. Normative beliefs about breaking road safety rules were measured with the Controversies questionnaire [pol. Kontrowersje] [7] - an originally developed 10 item scale based on Polish traffic regulations. Proneness to take risk was measured with Polish version of the DOSPERT (Domain Specific Risk-taking) questionnaire [6]. The questionnaire consists of 30 items divided into six scales which represent risk-taking behaviour in six domains: social, recreational, financial/investment, financial/gambling, health/safety, and ethical risk. The results of the study confirmed that normative beliefs about breaking traffic safety rules are correlated with risk-taking in general. There is also a statistically significant correlation between the score in Controversies scale and risk-taking in the domain of health and safety. The strength of this correlation, however, is not age-independent. Even more interestingly, age groups differ with regard to the domain in which risk-taking correlates with drivers’ normative beliefs which lead to the acceptance of breaking the traffic rules. While for the oldest subjects the correlation has been observed in the domain of health/safety specifically, in the youngest group it occurred in most of the domains, but the highest coefficients have been obtained for financial risk-taking. The results of the study need further examination due to the limited number of the older participants. However, the results suggest initially that vehicle driving might fall into different domains of risky decision making for various groups of individuals. Consequently, it might be useful to differentiate social communication intended to promote safe driving, so that it could refer to various domains of life.