Retaliatory Aggressive Driving: A Justice Perspective

Aggressive driving behaviours such as rude hand gestures, horn honking, tailgating, or causing damage to another vehicle continue to be a threat to motorist well-being. Based on the General Aggression Model and the attribution-of-blame model of injustice, the current study developed and tested a model of aggressive driving that included individual differences and cognitions related to the perception of injustice, driving anger, and retaliatory aggressive driving. A sample of 269 undergraduate students viewed five animated unjust driving scenarios and responded to items assessing cognitive, emotional, and behavioural responses. Results supported a model of aggressive driving suggesting that the belief in an unjust world contributes to perceptions of injustice via sensitivity to unjust events, and from perceptions of injustice to retaliatory aggressive driving via driving anger. Results also provided support for an attribution model of perceptions of injustice and provided a unique investigation of these attributions and perceptions in the driving environment. The current study also developed and found support for a new measure of driving justice sensitivity that may prove to be useful for future driving research. As a whole, this study provides a unique examination retaliatory aggressive driving, and data that can contribute to driving training programs to help reduce driving aggression.