Gender-Based Judgments of Traffic Violations: The Moderating Influence of Car Type1 (original) (raw)
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Legal and Criminological Psychology, 2005
demonstrated that stereotypes associated with particular types of car influenced judgements of culpability in a road accident report. This study explores whether stereotypes influence judgements of the speed of different vehicles. In Experiment 1, participants observed films of a BMW 3 Series and VW Polo being driven at 20, 40 and 60 mph. Accuracy of speed estimates was high and no effect of stereotyping was observed. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2 when the stereotype of a 'typical' BMW or Polo driver was instantiated prior to viewing the films and despite participants predicting that the speed of the BMW would be substantially higher than the Polo. In Experiment 3, speed estimates were made unexpectedly a day after viewing the films. In accordance with the stereotype, the BMW was now judged as being driven significantly faster than the Polo at the same actual speed. Consistent with findings from person perception, these results suggest that when unambiguous countervailing information is present, stereotypical influences are minimised or overwhelmed, but much stronger effects occur when access to critical information is impaired or ambiguous. The implications of these findings for witness estimates of vehicle speed are discussed.
Sexism against women is not a recent phenomenon. It continues to influence negatively the lives of millions of women in different parts of the world. Traffic is not exempt from sexism, either. Women drivers are being harassed all the time, everywhere, and it does not matter whether they are in traffic, at school, at home, at the workplace, in the news or in social media. Many people magically become an authority when speaking about women's driving behavior, knowledge, abilities and innate capabilities. This is nothing but sexism leading to restriction in women's freedom of transportation, degradation of women's perceived self-efficacy and increase in sexual harassment in traffic. In addition, this gendered structure in traffic ends up with inflated, overly positive, illusory self-assessment of driving capabilities in men, which is shown to be a major cause of their accident involvement. Through a comprehensive review of the literature, this article is an attempt to understand sexism in traffic from a social psychological perspective. First, it is discussed what lies beneath the taken-for-granted sexism in traffic and how people maintain such attitudes. Second, the associated consequences of sexism in traffic are discussed. Last, the ways to fight against sexism in traffic are discussed from a social psychological perspective.
Sex and age differences are particularly pronounced in car accidents. Current psychological research is exploring the relationship between risky driving and compliance with sex stereotypes, notably conformity with social expectations concerning masculinity. Some studies have already shown that sex stereotypes associated with driving (SSAD) may influence driving behaviors. The aim of this research was to explore the participants' sex and age differences in SSAD endorsement. A questionnaire was developed and validated on four dimensions of SSAD: male's driving skills and female's compliance with traffic rules, courtesy behind the wheel, and risk avoidance in driving. SSAD endorsement was measured for 291 licensed drivers from 18 to 64 years of age. Results revealed that females endorsed the female's risk avoidance stereotype more (p < .05), whereas males endorsed the male drivers (driving skills) stereotype more (p < .05). Results also revealed that the endorsement of male's driving skills decreases with age (p < .01) and the endorsement of female's courtesy increases with age among all participants (p = .01), while the endorsement of female's compliance with traffic rules increases with age only among female participants (p < .05). The results are discussed in terms of in-group/out-group relations and sex and age differences.
Sex and Age Differences in the Endorsement of Sex Stereotypes Associated with Driving
The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 2015
Sex and age differences are particularly pronounced in car accidents. Current psychological research is exploring the relationship between risky driving and compliance with sex stereotypes, notably conformity with social expectations concerning masculinity. Some studies have already shown that sex stereotypes associated with driving (SSAD) may influence driving behaviors. The aim of this research was to explore the participants’ sex and age differences in SSAD endorsement. A questionnaire was developed and validated on four dimensions of SSAD: male’s driving skills and female’s compliance with traffic rules, courtesy behind the wheel, and risk avoidance in driving. SSAD endorsement was measured for 291 licensed drivers from 18 to 64 years of age. Results revealed that females endorsed the female’s risk avoidance stereotype more (p< .05), whereas males endorsed the male drivers (driving skills) stereotype more (p< .05). Results also revealed that the endorsement of male's d...
Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 2015
The aim of this study was to investigate the specific contents of the social representations (SR) associated with men and women drivers and to examine the effects of the social insertions of individuals (i.e., age, sex and socioeconomic status) on the content and the structure of these SR. A preliminary study with 414 French participants identified thematic content associated with men and women drivers through the method of verbal associations. Based on these themes, 833 French participants, equally distributed on the basis of age group (from 12 to 50 years-old and over), sex and socioeconomic status (SES), were asked to answer a questionnaire on men (N = 422) or women (N = 411) drivers. The results show that these SR are each organized around three factors: incompetence, prudence and lack of selfcontrol for women drivers; carelessness, skills and self-control for men drivers. In-group 2 favoritism bias can be noted as male participants, more than female ones, rated men drivers as having self-control and women drivers as lacking self-control, whereas female participants, more than male ones, perceived men drivers as careless and women drivers as prudent. Despite this phenomenon, in all age groups, male respondents, more than female ones, seem to believe that women are not competent for driving, whereas both sexes seem to agree on men good driving skills. Among most age groups, three characteristics associated with man drivers (confidence, fastness and pleasure of driving) and four characteristics associated with female drivers (caution, civility, compliance with rules and vigilance) emerge as central in the SR. The SR associated with men drivers seem to be stable and shared across age groups, whereas the SR associated with women drivers appear more mixed, heterogeneous and unstable with age. Participants with higher SES consider female drivers as more incompetent, more nervous and less cautious than participants with lower SES and female's responses tend be closer to those provided by the male group when they are higher SES.
Measuring the perception of men and women drivers among young adults
2014
Gender differences in driving accidentology are actually particularly explained in the literature by the conformity to gender stereotypes, notably the association of risk-taking with social expectations concerning masculinity. To date, no research was interested in the effect of the perception of men and women drivers (PMWD) on driving behaviors. The aim of this research was to create a questionnaire measuring PMWD among young French adults. The PMWD was measured on 108 participants (33 men and 75 women), from 18 to 29 years old. Principal component analyses indicated that the organization and content of the perception of men drivers differed from the organization of the perception of women drivers. The results are discussed in terms of in-group/out-group relations in the PMWD.
Estimating the speed of vehicles: the influence of stereotypes
Psychology, Crime & Law, 2009
demonstrated that stereotypes associated with particular types of car influenced judgements of culpability in a road accident report. This study explores whether stereotypes influence judgements of the speed of different vehicles. In Experiment 1, participants observed films of a BMW 3 Series and VW Polo being driven at 20, 40 and 60 mph. Accuracy of speed estimates was high and no effect of stereotyping was observed. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2 when the stereotype of a 'typical' BMW or Polo driver was instantiated prior to viewing the films and despite participants predicting that the speed of the BMW would be substantially higher than the Polo. In Experiment 3, speed estimates were made unexpectedly a day after viewing the films. In accordance with the stereotype, the BMW was now judged as being driven significantly faster than the Polo at the same actual speed. Consistent with findings from person perception, these results suggest that when unambiguous countervailing information is present, stereotypical influences are minimised or overwhelmed, but much stronger effects occur when access to critical information is impaired or ambiguous. The implications of these findings for witness estimates of vehicle speed are discussed.
Gender stereotypes associated with vehicle driving among French preadolescents and adolescents.
2011
Gender differences in accidentology, notably on roads, are well documented and current research in social psychology tends to explain these differences by gender stereotypes, notably the association of risk-taking with social expectations concerning masculinity. To date, however, little research has explored gender stereotypes associated with vehicle driving. Beliefs about driving by men and women, as well as the effect of the age and gender of the perceiver, were explored using the free association method with 599 preadolescents and adolescents between 10 and 16 years of age. The results show that gender stereotypes are indeed associated with driving from the age of 10. While the representation of male drivers is already stable at this age, the representation of female drivers appears to develop with age. Furthermore, there is a notable in-group serving bias, but only among girls. The results are discussed in terms of an essentialist representation of genders, in-group/out-group relations, age differences in gender stereotypes associated with driving, and practical consequences on driver’s training and socialization to risk-taking.
Understanding driver anger and aggression: attributional theory in the driving environment
Journal of experimental psychology. Applied, 2011
Two studies tested the applicability of Weiner's (1995, 1996, 2001, 2006) attributional model of social conduct to roadway environments. This model highlights the role of inferences of responsibility after making causal judgments for social transgressions. Study 1 employed written scenarios where participants were asked to imagine themselves driving on a major highway. The degree of controllability and intentionality of the driving act was manipulated experimentally by altering the specific event-related details provided to the participants. Study 2 extended this research to life events by having participants complete online driving diaries every 2 days, identifying their most negative/upsetting encounter with another motorist. The most anger-provoking event was selected from among 4 diary entries and participants were asked to respond to a questionnaire similar to that used in Study 1. Path analyses in both studies generally supported predictions derived from Weiner's mod...
Current Psychology, 2011
Aggressive driving is a phenomenon that has taken on tremendous significance in society. While the issue has been studied from perspectives of several disciplines, relatively few comprehensive empirical investigations have been conducted. This may be due, at least in part, to a scarcity of comprehensive theoretical works in the field, from which methodical research hypotheses could be derived. This paper reviews major extant theories of general aggression to offer a rationale for choosing a particular framework to apply to the topic of aggressive driving. The social-cognitive model of aggressive driving is recommended, as it takes into account wide-ranging cognitive, situational, and dispositional factors. Implications for future research are also considered. Keywords Aggressive driving. Road rage. Dangerous driving. Traffic safety. Anger management Generally, reports of aggression in the context of driving have been imprecise, with researchers sometimes using "road rage" and "aggressive driving" synonymously and at other times disparately. A lack of conceptual clarity has stifled the field of aggressive driving research, which presently consists of relatively few objective studies. Rathbone and Huckabee (1999) said definitions of road rage in the literature often vary or are not specified, and they emphasized that aggressive driving and road rage are not synonymous. Dula and Geller (2004) provided a review of definitions