Individual Differences in Driver Over-Confidence: Implications for Stress, Error and Managing Impairments

摘要

This study aimed to extend understanding of individual differences in over-confidence in driver safety.First, we discriminated general driving confidence from confidence in coping with impairments such asfatigue and distraction. Second, we discriminated three aspects of overconfidence specified in terms of arecent Bayesian belief updating model of over-confidence (Moore and Healy, 2008): overestimation,overplacement and overprecision. Calibration tasks were used for this purpose. Results showed that themagnitude of overconfidence differed across the various metrics, and different metrics were only modestlyintercorrelated. Confidence in handling impairment appears to be distinct from general confidence. Bothforms of confidence were negatively related to dislike of driving but related differently to other aspects ofdriver behavior and stress. Risk factors related to self-estimation (violations, thrill-seeking) may be distinctfrom factors related to overplacement (aggression). Discrimination of multiple metrics for drivingoverconfidence may support better matching of safety interventions to the individual driver.