Abstract

MOGNON, Jocemara Ferreira  and  SANTOS, Acácia Aparecida Angeli dos. Driver's behavior assessment, locus of control and driving styles in traffic. Temas psicol. [online]. 2017, vol.25, n.4, pp. 1621-1635. ISSN 1413-389X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.9788/TP2017.4-07.

This study aimed to analyze driver's behavior, the locus of control in traffic and driving styles. Three hundred and twenty six drivers participated in the present study, aged 19-75 years (M = 38.27; SD = 11.54), 55.5% being female and with years of driving between 1 and 49 (M = 15.69; SD = 10.80). The instruments used were the Driver Behavior Questionnaire (QCM), the Traffic Locus of Control (T-LOC-BR) and the Multidimensional Driving Styles Inventory (MSDI). Results indicated that errors, lapses and drivers' violations were positively correlated with causal attributions of accidents to internal reasons and chance, as well as with aggressive and careless driving styles. The analysis of scores obtained from the three instruments also revealed significant differences with regard to sociodemographic variables. We believe these findings contribute to a better understanding of drivers' behavior, however, further studies are needed.

Keywords : Traffic psychology; risk behaviors; traffic violations.

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