Il ruolo delle emozioni nel comportamento di guida. Uno studio per la validazione di un questionario sull’espressione della rabbia alla guida

In the study of road traffic accidents, particular emphasis has been placed on driving anger, since several studies show that, when this emotion is experienced, drivers (especially younger and inexperienced ones) commit violations and errors to a greater extent, although some emotional regulation strategies are shown to be effective in reducing its frequency. The emotional activation given by anger and, in particular, its various modalities of expression, would affect attention, risk perception and risk-taking, reasoning, and motor performance, increasing the likelihood of committing traffic accidents. The present work is, therefore, focused on the validation of a driving anger expression questionnaire, the Driving Anger Expression Inventory (DAX) by Deffenbacher and colleagues (2002). The first chapter, therefore, first focused on emotions and their components (cognitive, physiological and behavioral) in order to understand their functional importance. The main theories on emotions were proposed and, in addition, emotional regulation and dysregulation were defined, along with the consequences of the latter on human behavior and environmental adaptation. The second chapter, on the other hand, focuses on driving behavior, with a specific focus on the psychological aspects involved and the relationship between driving style and road accidents. To reduce this risk, there must be a proper interaction between three elements: human, environment and vehicle (so-called “UAV system”). The most important, however, is the human factor, that is ngreatly influenced by the driver's risk perception, thus the influence of emotions and the effect of aggression on driving behaviors were explored. Also, in the third chapter, a preliminary study of the variables of interest was described, with the aim of providing an answer to a specific research question, namely, “What factors influence people's willingness to take a risk in traffic?” Particular emphasis was placed on the main cognitive and personality factors that influence and determine human driving behavior; attention was also paid to the presence of any differences attributable to age and gender in driving behaviors. Since this was an exploratory study, no specific hypotheses were made regarding the relationships between the variables or with respect to any differences that could be traced. Finally, the fourth chapter reports the validation study of the DAX questionnaire and the validation analyses performed, highlighting the methodology and instruments used. Given the strong influence of emotions and, especially, their regulation on driving behavior, the scales used mainly investigate driving anger, driving style and driver behavior, but also emotional regulation ability, also taking into account gender and age differences in driving style. Finally, a commentary was made on the results of the validation analysis of the questionnaire and its implications from a road risk prevention perspective related to dangerous conduct on the road.