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Emotions in traffic

 

Most road users get irritated now and again in traffic. It is often possible to say what caused the irritation: there are enough Top-10 lists of traffic annoyances. But what about other emotions? Is one ever pleased when a trip has gone well? Or anxious when approaching a complicated crossroads? Or thankful when one is unexpectedly given right-of-way? And what is the effect on road safety?

 

The subject "Emotions in Traffic" is part of a SWOV research programme over a number of years. This subject includes various projects, two of which have recently been completed.

 

Emotion process

One of the central questions in the first project was: along which processes do emotions in traffic occur? According to the emotion theory of Dutch psychologist Frijda, an influential theory in the field of emotion research, the emotion process goes through a number of phases. The first phase is that of observation, in which one asks oneself: what is happening? Then an evaluation follows of what happened: is this event important for me? The evaluation leads to feelings of comfort or discomfort: do I like this or not? The next step is an alteration of action readiness: am I inclined to react to this event?

 

Role of emotions

Which specific emotion occurs depends on the positive or negative feeling, but also on other evaluations. Thus, anger occurs mostly if something negative happens, if the extent of control is high, and if there is somebody else around that we can blame. The emotion theory of Frijda offers many leads for traffic psychological research in order to formulate relevant questions and find possible solutions. The literature studied thus shows that specific emotions (such as anger, fear, guilt feelings, or enjoyment) occur in traffic and are related to safe and unsafe behaviour. In order to estimate the road safety relevance more precisely, it is necessary to study the origin, course, and behavioural effects of emotions in traffic.

 

Diary

That is why, in a follow-up project, a number of specific features of emotions in traffic were examined. For a period of one week, respondents were requested to keep a diary in which, per journey/trip, they recorded details of the journey and the emotions experienced. When recording the emotions they could choose from a list of 29 descriptions of emotions which were later clustered in 6 types of emotions: pleasure, affection, surprise, anger, sorrow, and fear.

The following features of these emotions were specifically studied: frequency of occurring, intensity, cause, and road safety effects.

 

Results

The most frequently reported emotions are pleasure (more than half of all emotions) and anger (nearly a quarter of all emotions). In traffic, therefore, pleasure is more than twice as common as anger. Pleasure was experienced in half of all journeys; anger in one-in-five. The average intensity of the emotions is 6.3 (on a scale of 1 to 10).

More than half of the reported emotions were caused by others; this was the strongest for 'surprise' and 'anger', and the least strong for 'pleasure'. Hence, positive emotions (with the exception of affection) are less often caused by somebody else than negative emotions, such as anger.

In general, the idea is held that road users become irritated at the smallest provocation in traffic. This study shows that in fact the positive emotions occur more frequently than negative emotions

 

Causes and effects

Emotions in traffic are not only caused by traffic related events. The study shows that the way one feels before the journey is just as important for the emotional state during traffic participation. Thoughts occurring during the journey can also result in emotions. A small share of the emotions is caused by conversations or telephone calls.

According to the respondents, in nearly half of the cases, emotions have an influence on road safety; either positive or negative. Anger, sorrow, and fear have on average a negative road safety influence; whereas pleasure and affection have on average a positive effect. It is, however, striking that almost every sort of emotion is sometimes attributed a positive and sometimes a negative road safety effect.

 

Recommendations

Now we know how often all sorts of emotions occur, time has come to look more precisely at causes and effects. How do emotions actually work, and what can be done to increase the positive effects and minimize the negative ones. The diary study is a good reference point for future research. An objective answer to whether particular emotions increase or decrease in frequency and/or intensity can only be given if this study is repeated periodically. When results are reported, any shift in emotions will become visible.

 

Reports of both studies into Emotions have been published:

'Literature study of emotions in traffic;Use and possibilities of an affective approach to traffic behaviour' ( R-2002-31)

'Field study of emotions in traffic; Questionnaire study of features such as frequency, cause, and road safety effects' ( R-2003-8). Both Dutch reports include a summary in English.

 

 

Peter Levelt, Senior Researcher

On average, people experience an emotion once every half hour in traffic. I find this rather a lot. But what I find particularly striking is that positive emotions, such as pleasure, are far more frequent than anger. This I hadn't expected: the idea that people mainly experience irritation, has not been confirmed. It is a fact, however, that both cyclists and pedestrians report pleasure more often than motorists and motorcyclists.

What also surprised me is that cyclists get angry so often: 2½ times more frequently than pedestrians. When walking, one seldom gets angry.

As a psychologist it is nice, for once, to see results that were neither predicted nor expected.

What I find difficult to come to terms with is that, in nearly 10% of the cases, anger has made a positive contribution to road safety. I don't yet understand how that is possible.

The question: "What can we do with this for road safety?" has not yet been answered in this study, but, happily, many ideas for possible intervention have made their appearance.

 

 

SWOV Research Activities 23 - September 2003

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