The Role of Sex in Evaluating Other Male and Female Drivers’ Driving Skills and Behavior

Abstract

Countries with wider gender gap might host sex-based stereotypical evaluations, which might be present from the early ages and persist. It might also hinder the stereotyped groups’ performance on the stereotyped field, such as driving (Granié and Papafava, 2011; Moè, Cadinu, & Maass, 2015; Steele & Aronson, 1995). Although the effect of sex and gender roles in self-evaluated driving skills and behaviors are studied, the possible effect of sex in evaluating other male and female drivers in their driving skills and behaviors was not a topic of interest in road safety studies. Thus, the aim of the current study was to investigate whether sex of the participants was a significant factor in evaluating other male and female drivers’ driving skills and behavior. 92 Female and 70 male drivers participated in the study. Participants were asked to fill forms of Driver Skill Inventory (DSI) and Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ) to assess driving skills and behaviors of other male and female drivers. The results indicated significant differences between male and female participants in evaluations of other female drivers’ perceptual-motor skills, safety skills, and driving errors. In line with the literature, female drivers were endorsed for their safety skills, and male participants were endorsed for their perceptual motor skills. Similarly, female drivers received higher mean values for lapses and male drivers received higher mean values for errors, aggressive violations, and ordinary violations. Results are important in raising awareness regarding sex-based stereotypical evaluations of drivers, especially towards female drivers, in Turkey.