Driving Risk - Research Paper Example

Abstract. Researches have been conducted and few of them have revealed extensively about attribution theory. And how it could be used or how it has been perceived in the current society. Critics about the past attribution research has raised need for the research to investigate more on attributions. The research aims at exploring the actor observer effects its attributes to the young drivers under 24 years driving risk. The reach was conducted on 152 participants who were randomly selected from Melbourne region on three shopping centers, where by 81 of them were females aged between 18-22 years while 71 of them were males aged between 18 and 23 years. Data was collected through interview and the findings analyzed statistically. There was a total mean of and total standard deviation of. ANOVA results were f (1,148) =0.2 p>0.5 for rating and f (1,148) =3.71 p>0.for persons. This implied that there was no significant relationship between the driving risk and person driving, but there was significant in between the driving risk and drivers’ behavior. There fore the results revealed that there is no significant relationship between the age and driving risk hence no actor observer effect. Introduction Attributions are things which people tend to pinpoint as the major cause of certain behavior or events. There are external and internal attributes where by internal attributes refers to the behavioral explanations based on individual characteristic; we can attribute risky driving with drivers’ negligence (Vaughan and Hogg, 2011). Whereas external attributes is where by someone’s behavior is explained based on the external situations therefore we can associate risky driving with wet and slippery roads. Attributes are associates with bias which includes fundamental error, self-serving and actor observer effects. Fundamental error refers to the attributes tendency when looking for cause of the behavior we majorly focus on the individual traits rather than looking at the effect the behavior has to an individual. On the other hand Self serving bias occurs when people tend to explain their failure in respect to situations while success is attributes to personal disposition (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2011). Actor observer effect is a tendency of individuals attributing their behavior to situations and when watching others he/she attribute their behaviors to personal traits. Attributions affects the way individuals make decision regarding their life as well as other people’s real life. Drivers risky have been on increase with the drivers’ behaviors being attributed to be caused by their behaviors. Young people have been attributed to driving risks this necessitated need for research. The research was conducted on Melbourne region at three different shopping centers who acted as the good representatives of the entire population. The study predicted absence of relationship between the dependent and independent variables. There fore it anticipated that people could mostly use dispositional factors in attributing others behavior as opposed to self though it could depend on whether the driving behavior is risk or not. The rational of conducting the research was mainly to investigate further on behavioral attributes and reexamine Harre results to came up with a supported reported when making inferences on how driving risky could to attributed through actors observer effect. Few researches have been conducted on risk driving and its relationship to the actor observer effects. researches have been conducted on actor observer effects l effects on behaviors whereby findings revealed that the experimenters made assumptions which could not be associated with the study as it led to poor inferences therefore extensive research is required for the psychologists to have a clear cut and have better understanding of how attributes bias impacts the way behaviors, situations as well as personal traits are perceived. The research conducted by Harre et al (2004) made a comparison of self and others as far as risk driving is concerned. In their experiment they reasoned that driving risky was unusual behavior hence they articulated that there should be a presence of actor observer effect. In their experiment Harre and his fellow assumed that disposition attributes like showing off and situational attributes like being in a hurry affected risky driving behavior. They reported out that participants viewed themselves as being in a hurry than their friends and used often dispositional attributes when refereeing to themselves. Their findings were inconsistence with the actor observer effect where by individual used dispositional attributes in referring to others as opposed to themselves as they concluded. Consequently they also revealed that their experiment had different categories which showed actor observer effect differences. Harrer et al experiment had several problems attributed to it. Fist they made assumptions of actor observer effects in giving out their results. Their finding did not even show any evidence of making conclusions related to actor observer effects though they concluded to have observed the attribution bias. Questions regarding their finding raised alarm for researchers to investigate and found out on how the actor observer effect works. The authors also made an assumption that being in a hurry was a situational attribute which could affect how individual perceive others. To add on that they also analyzed sub sample group instead of analyzing the participants who were articulated to be used in the research to make conclusions. Critics about their report gave researchers an opportunity to find further whether there is relationship between the actor observer effects and the driving risky using different approaches. The research aims at investigating whether actor observer effects impacts the was people attribute young people under 24 year driving behavior. Hypothesis is there a relationship between the actor observer effects and young people driving risks. Methods Participants The research was conducted on 152 participants of which 81 of them were female between 18 and 22 .years, with a means age of 21.7years and standard deviation of 0.75 while 71 participants were male between 18 and 23 years which had a means of 22.2 and a standard deviation of 1.24 .all the participants participated fully on the research. Design The research was conducted by administering the questionnaire questions to the participants. The research was framed in a way that those driving were categorized in risky and non risky where respondents could respond in either yes or no where is in the person involved could respond in either other or self. Respondents were also asked on what they anticipated to be the cause of risky driving as they attached it to situational factors like poor roads and wet roads. The between factor was used in analyzing the number of participants. The design showed equal number of participants in person driving situations. The study design had different explanation on how participants viewed risk driving as well as how they described the person who was driving. The research conducted by interviewing respondents together though each one of them gave individual respondents. Depended variable (Rating) was attributed for drivers driving behavior was therefore measured by requesting the participants to respond by use of the Likert scale, which had different options of either strongly agree, neither agree nor disagree or strongly disagree on the fact that driving risky is associated with drivers or road conditions. Each option was anticipated to a certain number where by Material The research was conducted by using four different scenarios which contained description of behaviors in a written form. The descriptions was then included in a questionnaire and used to deduce the relationship between the independent and depended variables. The two variables included whether it was risky driving and the person who was undertaking driving. Different scenarios had different descriptions. Scenario one aimed at identifying self driving and risky driving, scenario two included self driving and absence of risk driving, scenario 3 included observation of an incidence where another person drives and it is risky driving while scenario 4 observed the case of other person driving and no risky driving involved. The scenarios were made to collect data which could identify whether there exist any relationship between risky driving and the person who drives. Procedure Recruitment of respondents started immediately after approval for ethics was obtained from the university of Deakin committee of ethics. Interviewees were recruited in Melbourne metropolitan region from three shopping towns. After recruiting the participants they were asked to read one of the scenarios and give a response. They were also asked to indicate their age, gender and years of driving experience. Pilot testing which was requiring the participants to identify the demographic factors, where by 25 participants were interviewed. 25 participants pinpointed out that people considered swaying twice on wet road as risky driving behavior. There after participants were informed that they required rehearsing with the experimenter to get result information and the rationale as well as predictions which were made. Results: Descriptive statistics Dependent variable (Rating) Person Driving mean Standard deviation n self risky 4.7895 1.61342 38 Non risky 4.8684 1.596891 38 total 4.8289 1.59489 76 Other risky 4.3421 1.81995 38 Non risky 4.3421 1.80504 38 total 4.3421 1.80039 76 total Risky 4.5658 1.72306 76 Non Risky 4.6053 1.71331 76 Total 4.5855 1.71261. 152 Table 1 In reference to the above table the total mean is 4.855 where as the standard deviation is 1.71261. The means was small compared to the number of participants. There is also indication of other individual means based on the situation as seen in table 1. After the respondents report was tabulated ANOVA analysis was also conducted based on the between factor model. The ANOVA was conducted at 5% significance level on dependent variable. There was no significant relationship which was shown in the statistics study where by driving effect (F(1,148)=0.02, p>0.05). Significant results for Persons effect, F(1,148)=3.07, p>0.05 therefore there was no significant relationship. Discussion The study was mainly conducted to come up with a concussion on how actor observer effects affects the way different people attributes others behaviors as well as theirs. The research was specifically trying to investigate the fact that people will be more disposition attributed on others behaviors as oppose to one self. This was done by classifying the risky driving as a disposition factors which was analyzed depending on peoples responses. The researchers also wanted to test the hypothesis that disposition factors attribute to others behavior but not for one self. The research predicted positive relationships as far as the relationship between the factors were concerned. There was also an aim of reexamining the Harres research by conducting a similar result which could give inferences which are fully supported and with minimal assumptions. The result revealed that there are no significant relationship between the driving risk and the person driving the vehicle. It also revealed that situational conditions affect the way individuals’ behaviors. As evidenced in the research that slippery road and wet roads were situational factors which increased the driving risk. The description results revealed that the means and standard deviation of all scenarios were almost equal hence one would not adequately determine the mean difference which could be used to mean an statistical inference. Statistical analysis which was conducted through analysis of variance at 5% significant level was conducted there fore the P>0.5. They hypothesized data showed that the calculated value for the dependent variable (rating) was o.02 which is lower than the P value therefore it was concluded that there was significant relationship hence driving risky is mainly associated with individual drivers fault as opposed to roads condition. Test for persons involved in driving showed that there was no significant relationship p> o.5 while the test results was 0.37. There fore actor’s observation effect that driving risky is associated with young people below 24 years of age was rejected. Therefore the researchers concluded that situational attributes don’t affect individual behavior but internal attributes do influence personal traits. The experiment was also articulated to certain assumptions and limitation. It was assumed that the sample selected for the study was the good representative of the population. In addition to that the participants’ responses were assumed to be true befire it was used to make inferences. Lastly there was an assumption of the disposition factors and situational factors in the study. The conditions of the roads were taken as situational factors where as other peoples perception when self or others drive were taken as dispositional attributes. The limitations could be impacted the type of data collected as well as inferences made. If the participants would have given wring information the data could be deduced wronged hence end up making wrong conclusions. The limitations were avoided by ensuring that the participants were not explained to the rationale as it could impact they way the gave their responses. Conclusion The study indentified that there is no significant difference between the persons are driving risk but there is significant relationship between the dependent variable rating rate and driving risks. This Implies that driving risk is determined by the drivers’ behavior as opposed to roads condition. There was also no significant relationship between driving risk and road condition, therefore driving risk is not associated to person or situational factors hence it is affected by the drivers behavior. The research don’t fully reveal attributes theory hence Researches related to attribution theory are very few hence much is required to be done to investigate further about the attribution theory and its implications. References. Harre N., Brandt, T., & Houkamau, C. (2004).An examination of the Actor-observer effects in young drivers attribution for their own and their friends risky driving: Journal of applied social psychology, 34(4)806-824. Plotnik, R. & Kouyoumdjian, H. (2011) Introduction to psychology. London: Cengage learning Inc. Vaughan, G. and Hogg, M. (2011) Social Psychology. Financial times management. Read More