The goal in this article is to briefly review a recently innovative application of Emotion Regulation. The authors, Bjureberg and Gross (2021), provide an integrative conceptual framework of road rage and its regulation based upon a psychological analysis of emotion and emotion regulation.
Road traffic crashes are responsible for more deaths worldwide than most diseases, and they are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5–29 years (WHO, 2018). Traffic crashes are also associated with elevated levels of psychological distress (Craig et al., 2016); a recent meta‐analysis concluded that the pooled prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder among road traffic crash survivors was over 20% (Lin, Gong, Xia, & Dai, 2018). All told, it is reported that, in the United States alone, the medical expenses and productivity losses associated with traffic crashes in 2017 exceeded $75 billion (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). However, as Bjureberg and Gross (2021) show, the research on this topic is scattered across fields, and a number of crucial questions remain unanswered.
A large majority of road traffic crashes have been attributed to human factors, such as fatigue, intoxication, and angry/aggressive driving behaviors (Petridou & Moustaki, 2000). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the United States estimated that about 67% of crash fatalities involve aggressive driving (Goodwin, et al., 2015). The proportion that involves anger is not clear; however, a recent meta‐analysis concluded that driving anger is reliably associated with traffic crashes (Zhang & Chan, 2016). Concern with anger‐related and aggression‐related driving behavior has evoked scientific interest for more than 7 decades (Tillmann & Hobbs, 1949).
Emotion Regulation Framework:
The term road rage was coined and popularized by the media in the late 1980s. Road rage has since been defined as hostile behaviors that are directed to other road users, including behaviors such as tailgating or colliding with a lead vehicle (Shinar, 1999). Other researchers have suggested restricting the use of the term to describe the most serious forms of aggression, such as forcing someone off the road or drawing a gun at another driver (Galovski, Malta, & Blanchard, 2006; Wells‐Parker et al., 2002). Britt and Garrity (2003) have, however, used the term road rage for mild as well as severe forms of driving‐related anger expression and argue that the term road rage has the advantage of capturing the totality of a driver's responses when confronted with an anger‐provoking situation.
For the purposes of this article, Bjureberg and Gross (2021) are primarily interested in the experience of fairly intense and maladaptive experience and expression of anger in the context of driving. Based on the affective science literature (e.g., Mauss, Levenson, McCarter, Wilhelm, & Gross, 2005), they view road rage as a multicomponential construct involving loosely coupled changes in subjective experience, behavior, and peripheral physiology. Elaborating on a prior definition of driving anger (Galovski et al., 2006), Bjureberg and Gross (2021) propose a working definition of road rage as a form of fairly intense behaviorally maladaptive anger often cued by driving‐related stimuli while operating a vehicle or riding in one as a passenger. This conceptualization of road rage places the construct in the intersection of general anger, driving anger, and aggressive driving (see Figure 1). While acknowledging that many of the key constructs used in the present article are somewhat differently defined in different research traditions, Bjureberg and Gross (2021) believe that a strategic broadening of the term road rage is useful in our effort to draw together disparate research communities. Below, (see Figure 2.) Bjureberg and Gross (2021) review how the related constructs overlap and describe how road rage may provide a unifying concept useful in a psychological analysis of road rage generation and regulation.
While a limitation, Bjureberg and Gross (2021) have only thus far predominantly considered situations in which drivers regulate their own emotions (i.e., intrinsic emotion regulation). Within the broader field of emotion regulation, growing attention has been directed toward the process of regulating someone else's emotion (i.e., extrinsic emotion regulation; e.g., Nozaki & Mikolajczak, 2020).
Road rage provides interesting opportunity to study potential passenger-effects on both its generation and regulation. Passenger conversations have been shown to increase driving situation awareness (Drews, Pasupathi, & Strayer, 2008). However, important questions remain as to whether passengers can assist drivers in correctly identifying their emotions, in selecting and implementing road rage regulation strategies, and in monitoring regulation success. Such research would inform scientists, therapists, vehicle engineers, and driving educators, in how to best notify drivers that they are showing early signs of anger in a validating and effective manner; as well as how to communicate emotion regulation strategy prompts.
In sum, then, Bjureberg and Gross (2021) believe road rage offers unique research opportunities to address these questions as its cycles of anger and aggression occur within a confined space that can be studied in both real-world and ecologically valid simulated settings, in which controlled, repeated measurements can be undertaken. These types of studies could provide the research community with robust standardized transportable experimental paradigms that allow for replication. Bjureberg and Gross (2021) expect that findings from such studies may not only help advance our understanding of road rage, but also of anger, aggression, and emotion regulation in general.
For further reading, please see:
Bjureberg, J. and Gross, J.J. (2021), Regulating road rage. Social & Personal Psychology Compass, 15: e12586. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12586
About the Author
Matthew T. Wilson, PhD, has spent half of his life in Jacksonville, Alabama. He recently has moved back to the area, where he and his partner, Emma H. Wilson, PhD, are co-owners of Wilson Psychology Group, LLC. They have one son, Madison H. Wilson.
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M.T. Wilson, PhD
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