Do people drive as they live, or are they transformed when they drive? A comparison of driving styles and living styles

摘要

The question of whether "people drive as they live" or whether "they are transformed behind the wheel" has been addressed in previous research but it mainly focused on anger and aggressive behaviors. Current research tries to go further and compares driving styles with their analogous living styles to analyze both convergence and divergence in both safe and unsafe driving styles. Then, dissociative driving style was linked with general dissociation experiences, risky driving style with general sensation seeking, angry driving style with a general anger trait, anxious driving style with an anxiety trait, distress-reduction driving style with control of aggression, and careful driving style with conscientiousness. A sample of 228 participants taken from the general population of Spanish drivers completed a set of questionnaires regarding both driving styles and living styles. The hierarchical linear regression models showed both convergence and divergence in the case of unsafe driving styles, whereas safe driving styles were not so strongly related to their respective general behaviors (especially in the case of the distress-reduction driving style). A final structural equation model (SEM) simultaneously analyzed the relationship between driving styles and living styles. Both clinical and road-safety implications of the current study are discussed, as well as its limitations.