International Journal of

Traffic and Transportation Psychology

Volume 3, ISSUE 2 / 2015 – www.ijttp.ro

THE RELATINSHIOP BETWEEN SMOKING AND DRIVING

AGGRESSION

MIHAELA CRUCERU
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences

Abstract
Previous studies regarding personality traits at drivers highlighted the relationship
between personality factors and movement anticipation at youngsters (Chraif, Vilcu &
Burtaverde, 2015), the relationship between perceived emotion, personality traits and level
of wellbeing at amateur drivers (Chraif Corbu & Burtaverde, 2014) and the Big Five
Personality Factors in the prediction of aggressive driving behavior at undergraduate
students (Aniței, Chraif, Burtaverde & Mihailă, 2014). This is focused to identify the
relationship between consumption of cigarettes and aggressive driving. Following this
study, which involved a total of 64 participant, smokers and nonsmokers, revealed that
smoking has an influence on aggressiveness behind the wheel, being a statististically
significant predictor for it. Participants: This study involved a number of 62 drivers aged
between 19 and 56 years. The average age of participants was 27.05 years and standard
deviation was 6.87. Aggressive driving behavior AVIS test (Vienna Tests System 2012) is a
questionnaire made up of 36 items aimed at different types of driving behavior. significant
correlation was also found between the desire to smoke and the total score on the AVIS
questionnaire regarding aggressive behavior (r = 0.303, p = 0.03 <0.05).

Cuvinte cheie: fumat, agresivitate traffic, siguranta traffic, șofat riscant

Keywords: smoking, driving aggression, safety driving, risky driving

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. DRIVING AGGRESSION

Bushman & Anderson (2001) cited in Anderson & Bushman (2002) define
aggression as behavior directed towards any other person that aims immediate
injury. The abuser must believe that the victim is motivated to avoid the effects of
aggressiveness.
Baumeister (1989), cited in Bushman & Anderson (2002) specifies that
accidental injury is not considered aggressiveness because it is not intentional. The
author also mentions that the injury as a result of an attempt to provide aid is part
of aggressiveness because the offending person does not believe that the victim is
motivated to avoid aggression directed towars him. Violence is a form of
aggression that is intended to cause severe pain and even death (Anderson &
Bushman, 2002). Violence includes aggression but aggression may not include
violence. A person can be aggressive without being violent, but it is implicit that a
violent person is also aggressive. Berkovitz (1989, 1990, 1993) apud. Bushman and
Anderson (2002) states that aversive events as loud noises, frustrations, challenges,
temperatures, unpleasant odors produce adverse affected. These effects
automatically stimulate different thoughts, memories, motor reactions and
physiological responses associated with either flee response or flight response
(fight or flight).
The theory of cognitive association states that the evidence presented during
an aversive event is associated with cognitive and emotional responses triggered by
that event. Under these paradigms aggressive thoughts, emotions and behavior
trends are linked to memory (Collins and Loftus cited in, Bushman and Anderson,
2002).
The concepts that have similar meanings and are frequently simultaneously
activated, develops powerful combination. When a concept is activated, the
activation spreads to related concepts and their increases their activation.
Social Learning Theory: According to the social learning theory (Bandura,
1983, Mitchell, 1973, 1999, Mitchel and Shoda, 1995, as cited Bushman and
Anderson, 2002) people acquire aggressive responses in the same way that acquire
other complex forms of social behavior. Social learning theory explains learning
aggressive behavior through observation and provides a useful set of concepts for
understanding and describing the thoughts and expectations that guide social
behavior.
Script Theory: According to Hussman (Huesmann 1986, 1998, Bushman &
Anderson cited, 2002), when children observe violence in the media, they learn
aggressive scenarios. Scenarios define situations and guide behavior. Once a
scenario is learned, it can be recalled later and can be used as a guide behavior.
This can be seen as a more specific social learning process. Scenarios are sets of
related concepts very well trained in memory, often involving causal link, goals
and action plans (Abelson, 1981; Schank & Abelson, 1977 cited in, Bushman and
Anderson, 2002). When items are so strongly linked to form one scenario become a
unitary concept in semantic memory.

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 Moreover, even some rehearsals scenario may change expectations and
intentions regarding social. One scenario often repeated gains strength and
availability in two ways.
Multiple repetition produce links to other concepts of memory, increasing the
number of activating pathways. Also, multiple repeats increase the power
connections. Thus, a child that has seen thousands of examples on TV in which a
person uses weapons to impose their views will have a very affordable scenario
which was generalized throughout multiple situations. In other words, this senariu
becomes very affordable.
Excitation transfer theory (Zimmerman, 1983): according to this theory
physiological arousal slowly disperses. If two exciting events follow each other at
short intervals of time, the first excitation can be attributed erroneously to the
second one. If, for example, the second event is associated with anger, then that
person will make additional excitement to feel angry.
The transfer excitation assumes that anger can be maintained for longer
periods of time if the person knowingly attributes the increase of arousal of anger.
Thus, even after the excitement has dissipated, the person remains ready to aggress
as long as he holds the self-assigned label of anger.
The theory of social interaction (Tedeschi & Felson ,1994) interprets
aggressive or coercive behavior as a social influence behavior: ex. One person will
use coercion to bring about changes in the behavior of another person to obtain:
 What one values: information, goods, sex, money, services, safety
 To restore justice in situations perceived as unfair
 To highlight the desired identity and social self (strength, power)
According to this model, people are decision makers whose behavior choices
are guided by the expected rewards, costs and likelihood to achieve different
effects.
Radu & Chraif (2015 were interested to find out gender differences regarding
short term memory at undergraduate students, Chraif, Vilcu & Burtaverde (2015)
conducted a study regarding the relationship between personality factors and
movement anticipation at youngsters, Chraif Corbu & Burtaverde (2014) were
interested in a correlative study between perceived emotion, personality traits and
level of wellbeing at amateur drivers and Aniței, Chraif, Burtaverde & Mihailă
(2014) were interested to analyze the Big Five Personality Factors in the prediction
of aggressive driving behavior at undergraduate students.
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 1.2. SMOKING AND DRIVING AGGRESSION

Factors that determine the appearance of smoking: a first explanation for the
occurrence of smoking is the tendency to imitate role models, people with higher
social status to which people aspire. Smoke has a symbolic importance, associated
with adult status, freedom, with boldness and beauty. While stating that the habit of
smoking is picked up by children from parents, a greater influence seems to have
older brothers; so 40% of children who have older siblings who smoked, smoked
themselves, compared with 20% of children whose older siblings did not smoke
(Higgins et al., 1967, Lampert 1965 cited. Mausner & Platt, 1971).Social factors
also play an important role in supporting and producing the habbit of smoking.
Thus, smoking is a factor that holds and connects individuals to the groups they
belong, not infrequently, when a member of a group smoking a cigarette is
followed by other group members who are subject to peer pressure from cohesion
and be part of the group and to define group to define the group and group habits
(Mausner & Platt, 1971).

2. OBJECTIVE AND HYPOTHESES

2.1. OBJECTIVE

The aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between smoking

and driving aggression. Furthermore, we want to demonstrate if cigarettes
consumptions predict driving aggression.

2.2. HYPOTHESES

 Hypothesis 1. There is a positive relationship between smoking and

driving aggression.
 Hypothesis 2. Smoking is a positive predictor of driving aggression.

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 3. METHOD

3.1. PARTICIPANTS/SUBJECTS

Participants: This study involved 62 drivers aged between 19 and 56 years.

The average age of participants was 27.05 years and standard deviation was 6.87.
One of the participants did not declare his age. Participants took part in the study
voluntarily. They were announced through internet channels about the opportunity
to participate in a study that seeks to identify links between tobacco use and the
way we drive.

3.2. INSTRUMENTS

Aggressive driving behavior AVIS test (ViennaTests System 2012): is a

questionnaire made up of 36 items aimed at different types of driving behavior.
After applying the test scores are calculated for three types of behavior: aggression
and acting out instrumental, anger and aggressiveness pleasure.
Answers to the questions are on a scale and participants must choose a value
between 1 and 8 for each item. The duration of administration of the sample is
about 10 minutes. It was included in a Google Docs form and distributed to the
participants via the Internet. Questionnaire on accident history: it consists of 5
items concerning the number of accidents in which the driver was involved, if and
whenever he was involved in major accidents or minor, and if he was arrested
again or had the license suspended.
Questionnaire on smoking: consists of 10 items with a response scale that
measures the frequency of a behavior (1-ever 5-always). Questions of behavior and
attitudes of this questionnaire on smoking habits and relate to coping mechanisms
include smoking, awareness of smoking and pleasure caused by this habit.

3.3. PROCEDURE

Participants in this study took part voluntarily. No pre-selection waas carried

out no. They were asked to answer an online form that includes the three tools

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used. Each research participant was asked to complete questionnaires after
previously reading and signing the informed consent form.

4. RESULTS

After calculating the Shapiro Wilk coefficient to determine the normality of

distribution resulted in a distribution which deviates from normal distribution for
variable aggressiveness behind the wheel and a normal distribution of responses to
the questionnaire on the desire to smoke. Given the unequal distribution of smokers
and non-smokers, we can infer that this was a factor which could influence the
distribution of responses to the questionnaire regarding aggressive driving.
Hereinafter we can find the central tendency indicators for the two tests.

Table 1.Descriptive statistics for all study variables.

Statistics
SMOKE_DESIRE Aggressive driving
Valid 31 29
N
Missing 32 34
Mean 14.71 89.7586
Median 11.00 80.0000
Mode 10 58.00a
Std. Deviation 10.031 30.04479
Variance 100.613 902.690
Range 35 98.00

Notice the difference between the values of central tendency in the case of the
variable aggressiveness behind the wheel, which indicates a distribution that
deviates from the normal curve and, as we shall see in the graphic representation of
histogram, is asymmetrical negative, which means that lower values of the variable
in question prevails. This may be due to unequal distribution of smokers compared
to nonsmokers.

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 Figure 1. Graphical representation for driving aggression distribution

Inferential statistics: after calculating the Pearson test the following

correlations were revealed: test results on the craving to smoking correlated with
test results on crash involvement (r = 0.46, p = 0.01 <0.05) for a total of 47
participants which responded to the two questionnaires (N = 47). Also, a
significant correlation was also found between the desire to smoke and the total
score on the AVIS questionnaire regarding aggressive behavior (r = 0.303, p = 0.03
<0.05), these results being consistent with our research hypotheses.
Other statistically significant correlations were the correlations between
instrumental aggressiveness and anger (r = 0.53, p = <0.05). Also anger positively
significant statistically correlated with pleasure derived from violence, test value
calculated for these variables correlation being r = 0.57, p <0.05. Pearson
correlations are present in the following table:

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 Table 2. Regression model summary for desire to smoke as a predictor of driving aggression
Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate
1 .303a .092 .072 33.19400

Regression analysis: variables under evaluation were aggression measured by

the AVIS questionnaire as a dependent variable, and the desire to smoke, measured
by the questionnaire consisting of 10 questions, as a predictor of the dependent
variable or criterion. Gaining the R squared = 0.92, R = 0.303, we can assume,
according to the predictor regression model analysis, that the desire to smoke can
predict criterion, aggressive driving test.

5. CONCLUSIONS

Previous studies regarding the agressive driving and the use of AVIS
questionnaire were conducted by Chraif, Aniței, Burtăverde & Mihăilă (2015)
regarding the link between personality, aggressive driving, and risky driving
outcomes and Chraif, Aniței, Dumitru, Burtăverde & Mihăilă (2015) regarding the
development of an english version of the aggressive driving behavior test.
Regarding the present study, the data supports the initial hypothesis that smoking is
a predictor of aggressive driving behavior or aggressive driving style. However the
sample of the present research was comprised mainly of smokers, which induces a
degree of reservation about the validity and power of generalization of the results.
However, since drivers, particularly professional drivers, usually smoke more than
other categories of people we can be confident that replicating this research with a
randomly selected sample and homogeneous in terms of age, gender and
distribution of smokers will give conclusive results. As future direction would be to
study the impact of a smoking cessation program for people who smoke a lot. It
would also be important to consider other variables that may affect aggressive
driving behaviors such as habit of listening to music at high volumes or
combination of tobacco and energy drinks or high sugar.

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Transportation Psychology, 3(1), 65-73.
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 REZUMAT
Studii anterioare privind trasaturi de personalitate la drivere evidențiat relația dintre
factorii de personalitate și de circulație anticipare la tineri (Chraif, Vilcu & Burtaverde,
2015), relația dintre emoție perceput, trăsături de personalitate și nivelul de bunăstare la
drivere amatori (Chraif Corbu & Burtaverde, 2014 ) și celor cinci mari factori de
personalitate în predicția comportamentului agresiv de conducere la studenti (Aniței,
Chraif, Burtaverde & Mihaila, 2014). Acest lucru este concentrat pentru a identifica relația
dintre consumul de țigări și de conducere agresiv. În urma acestui studiu, care a implicat
un total de 64 de participante, fumatori si nefumatori, a relevat faptul ca fumatul are o
influență asupra agresivitate la volan, fiind un predictor semnificativ pentru statististically
ea. Participanți: Acest studiu a implicat un număr de 62 de șoferi cu vârste cuprinse între
19 și 56 de ani. Varsta medie a participantilor a fost 27.05 ani și deviația standard a fost
6,87. Comportamentul de conducere agresiv AVIS testare (Viena testele System 2012) este
un chestionar format din 36 de articole care vizează diferite tipuri de comportament de
conducere. corelație semnificativă a fost constatat, de asemenea între dorința de a fuma și
scorul total pe chestionar AVIS cu privire la comportamentul agresiv (r = 0,303, p = 0,03
<0,05).

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