The best, the worst, and the avoidant: The relationship between causal and affective evaluations about driving performance and self-regulatory driver behaviors

Date

2023-10

Author

Fındık, Gizem

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Self-regulatory behaviors in road traffic context involve modifying driving behavior in a way to adapt to changes in capacity and occurs in the form of reduction or cessation of driving in the face of challenging situations. One individual difference variable that may potentially be a precursor of self-regulatory behaviors in driving is causal attribution, which means the set of evaluations about the perceived causes of success and failure. Previous studies investigated different precursors of driving self-regulation. However, this study is the first to examine the precursors of driving self-regulation within the causal attributional framework. Unlike previous studies that either have participants of old age or make age-based comparisons, this study aims to understand the aforementioned mechanism independent from age. The current study aims to investigate the relationship between causal attributions (about the best and the worst performed aspects of driving), affective outcomes of these attributions (i.e. Positive Affect and Negative Affect), and behavioral outcomes associated with them (i.e. driving self-regulation measured by the level of avoidance). A sample of 400 drivers filled out the demographic information form, the Causal Dimension Scale-II, the International Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Short Form, and the Extended Driving Mobility Questionnaire-Avoidance. Results show that attributional model is more useful for explaining driving avoidance in the context of the worst performance as compared to the best performance. Increased External Control leads to increased Negative Affect, which then leads to increased avoidance behavior. This study shows that causal evaluations about performance can influence self-regulatory driving behaviors.

Subject Keywords

Causal dimensions, Attribution, Affect, Driving self-regulation, Driving avoidance

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/105937

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis