PERSONALITY-CORRELATES OF DRIVER STRESS

This paper reports four studies of personality and mood correlates of a validated questionnaire measure of predisposition to driver stress, the Driving Behaviour Inventory (DBI: Gulian, Matthews, Glendon, Davies & Debney, 1989a; Ergonomics, 32, 585-602). The DBI measures a general factor of driver stress, plus five more specific dimensions. Study 1 (N = 159) found that general driver stress was positively correlated with the EPQ N scale and with minor accident involvement. Study 2 (N = 44) obtained significant positive correlations between driver stress and frequency of daily hassles and aggressiveness. In Study 3 (N = 49), it was shown that higher driver stress was related to poorer self-rated attention. Study 4 (N = 50) demonstrated that driver stress was associated with stressed mood states, both in the driver's car, and in a control condition. Results of the four studies also showed that different specific dimensions of driver stress are associated with different correlates. For example, a dimension of driving aggression was associated primarily with self-reported interpersonal and behavioural reactions, whereas a dislike of driving dimension correlated mainly with cognitive and affective reactions. The studies reported add to the validation of the DBI, and further support the distinctiveness of at least some of the five specific dimensions of driver stress. © 1991.