Affective States and Risky Driving Behavior of Novice and Young Drivers

Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksPublished abstract in conference proceedingsResearchpeer-review

Authors

Although general car safety has increased considerably and at the same time accident numbers have decreased remarkably on average in the European Union during the last years, the percentage of novice and young car drivers involved in heavy car accidents is still remaining dramatically high, e.g., in Germany more than twice as high compared to older and more experienced drivers based on their proportion of the driving population. Traffic psychological research shows that maladjusted driving behavior caused by affective states is a main contributor to traffic accidents. Therefore, our current experimental study analyzes this influence of affective states on driving performance with regard to novice and young drivers. In an experimental scenario affective states (positive vs. negative valence) were induced in participants and subjects were then asked to drive predefined routes in a driving simulator. Results indicated that drivers drove significantly faster in a positive affective state compared with drivers in a negative affective state. This effect was pronounced by trend for novice drivers.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication49. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie : Supplement to Psychological Test and Assessment Modeling
EditorsOnur Güntürkün
Number of pages1
PublisherPabst Science Publishers
Publication date2014
Pages569
ISBN (print)978-3-89967-993-9
ISBN (electronic)978-3-89967-994-6
Publication statusPublished - 2014
EventConference - 49. Congress of the German Psychological Society: Vielfalt der Psychologie - Ruhr-Universität Bochum , Bochum, Germany
Duration: 21.09.201425.09.2014
Conference number: 49
https://www.dgps.de/index.php?id=143&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1460&cHash=e884e042707525f16e392540098ceb35