Hi
Thanks to people who suggested some things to read. I'd like to
follow up briefly on the road rage.
On Sun, 5 Mar 2000, Rick Adams wrote:
> Jim wrote:
> > different media. The same thing is true for "road rage" of
> > course. Is there solid evidence that such acts of rage occur
> > with higher-than-expected frequency and to people who are
> > otherwise non-aggressive?
> Actually, some evidence _does_ exist that individuals
> who demonstrate "road rage" do not manifest the same behaviors
> in other areas of their lives. I _think_ the basic research was
> being done at either USC or UCLA, but since I don't have the
> material here at home, I can't say for sure if that's accurate.
Not manifesting the same behaviours in their own lives is not the
same as comparing people to others in the same circumstances
(e.g., fender-benders) who do not demonstrate aggression. Even
very violent people probably have a majority of non-violent
interactions with other people. The trick, it seems to me, is to
find some way to measure psychological qualities known to be
related to violence (e.g., angry, impulsivity, psychopathy,...)
and find out whether people who demonstrate "road rage" are
already elevated on these dimensions, or not elevated on those
dimensions, according to the view that "road rage" is special
and unique behaviour. Ideally one would also like to demonstrate
that the people do not show rage when in similarly stressful and
confrontational circumstances not involving driving. Before
positing domain-specific rage, it would appear useful to
eliminate "road rage" as a general manifestation of individual
susceptibility and stressful circumstances, including both main
effects and interactions of these factors. I'm not sure whether
or how this thinking would apply to Information Highway Rage, but
suspect one could come up with similar questions (e.g.,
individual differences in hostile out-spokenness and response to
confrontational circumstances). I wonder what the implications
are for on-line teaching?
Best wishes
Jim
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James M. Clark (204) 786-9757
Department of Psychology (204) 774-4134 Fax
University of Winnipeg 4L05D
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CANADA http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~clark
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