Mediating Effect of Trait Hostility between Aggressive Driving and Media Exposure

1. DVQ DAS GADB Violent Media Exposure .21*** VAGG PPAG UVEA ADAP * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001 Hypotheses Indirect Relationships with Personality Trait Hostility The GAM predicts that aggressive media exposure should raise peoples overall aggressive tendencies. Thus it is predicted that there will be … Positive relations between various forms of aggressive media exposure & scores on personality trait hostility. Positive relations between personality trait hostility & specific measures of driver aggression. A negative relation between pro-social forms of media & personality trait hostility. A negative relation between personality trait hostility & a measure of adaptive driving behaviours aimed at calmly dealing with frustration. Direct Relationships The GAM is a multistage process that describes how media can affect aggressive behaviors via elevating general hostility. There are many other ways that media could alter driving behaviors besides the indirect way of altering general aggression (for example video games might teach specific driving behavior through simulation and film may lead to modeling of bad driving behaviors).Thus it is predicted that there will be… A positive relation between Violent/Aggressive forms of Media Exposure & measures of aggressive driving even after accounting for sex, normative beliefs about violence, & personality trait hostility. A negative relation between Pro-Social Media Exposure & adaptive driving behaviours after accounting for sex, normative beliefs about violence, & trait hostility. DVQ Pro - Social Media Exposure DAS Discussion For this study, sex was not a theoretically important variable, nevertheless statistically significant findings were discovered for all relationships except with VAGG. (Men showed positive correlation with all but one measure of aggression, while women showed positive relationships with PME and ADAP.) Sex was therefore statistically controlled in all of the analyses. The path analysis is a test for causal theories with correlational data. In the case of the GAM we are predicting that A causes B, that in turn causes C. The first way to test a casual theory is often to see if the predicted relationship exists at all by running a correlation. Here the path analysis must see if the predicted relationships between A (types of media exposure) exists with B (general aggression) and in turn with C (aggressive driving behaviors). All of our findings were able to demonstrate the existence of such relations. Our findings also demonstrated the predicted relationships between viewing pro-social media and more productive driving strategies. Future research may wish to use an experiment to further test the causal relations, predicted by the GAM, with media exposure to driving behavior. Not all of the predicted direct relations were found. No direct relation was found between VME and any driving behaviors. This means that any relation VME has on driving behavior may be accounted for by other variables with which it shares variance (i.e., sex, hostility, VME, PME, and RME are multicollinear). Similarly no significant relation could be found between a person’s likelihood of getting in a fight with another driver that was not accounted for by their personality trait hostility. Any causal relationship media has on this variable is likely to occur through mediating variables. Of particular note was the uniquely strong direct relations shown between PME with the ADAP (beta=.20) and between RME with VAGG (beta=.33). In other words, a person’s exposure to pro-social media exposure was the best predictor of adaptive driving behaviors even after controlling for differences in sex and personal trait hostility. Likewise, exposure to relational aggression in media was the best predictor of verbal aggression while driving. This information could be useful in prioritizing what specific forms of media should be addressed in future research. GADB VAGG Methods • Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BP) - This scale assesses four subscales of aggression; but, as in the case of this study, it can also be used to come up with a single score that measures personality trait hostility (Buss & Perry, 1992). • Driver Vengeance Questionnaire (DVQ)- By measuring the chosen responses to hypothetical driving situations this scale creates a score that is predictive of the likelihood of aggressing while driving(Wiesenthal, Hennessy, Gibson, 2000). • Driving Anger Expression Inventory (DAX) - The DAX measures four forms of anger expression that have been shown to correlate with driving behavior (Deffenbacher, Lynch, Oetting, Swaim, 2004). The DAX comes up with four subscales scores representing each of these types of expression by asking how often a person expresses such expressions. • Verbal Aggressive Expression (VAGG), looks at yelling and cursing behaviors. • Personal Physical Aggressive Expression (PPAG ), looks at confrontational behaviors with other drivers. • Use of the Vehicle to Express Anger (UVEA), looks at hostile vehicular behaviors. • Adaptive/Constructive Expression (ADAP), looks at how a person copes positively with frustration while driving. • Driving Anger Scale (DAS) -This scale asks the participant to imagine various scenarios while driving and then to report the amount of anger that would be felt by themselves if the scenario was actually happening (Deffenbacher, Oetting, & Swain, 1994). • General Aggressive Driving Behaviours (GADB) – This scale assesses driver anger by asking a participants how often they engage in five commons behaviors that often signal anger while driving (Wiesenthal, Hennessy, Gibson, 2000). • Favourite Media Questionnaire (FMQ)The FMQ asks participants about the quantity and qualities of the various forms of media exposure. Participants are asked to make subjective judgements about how violent, relationally aggressive and pro-social their favorite forms of media are. These responses are used to create subscales looking at: • Violent Media Exposure (VME) • Relational Aggression Media Exposure (RME) • Pro-Social Media Exposure (PME) PPAG Relationally Aggressive Media Exposure UVEA ADAP * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001 Participants One thousand three hundred sixty-six undergraduate students, both male and female, voluntarily participated in one of two mass testing sessions and/or a scale validation session in the fall of 2004. All participants were enrolled in an introductory psychology class (Psych 101, 230, and/or 280) at Iowa State University. Procedure In exchange for participation, participants received partial credit toward these classes for participating in the sessions. All participants filled out the BP and the FMQ. Due to limitations not all participants filled out each of the driving measures. The total number of participants in each group are reported in Figure 1 and 2. Results A path analysis was performed on the variables. The significant standardized beta weights are reported in figures 1 & 2. The inter-correlations between types of media exposure and different measures of aggressive driving are reported in tables 1& 2 respectively. References Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science, 12, 353-359. Anderson, Craig E; Dill, Karen E (2000). Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology. 78, 772-790 Buss, A. H., & Perry, M. P. (1992). The aggression questionnaire. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 442-450. Deffenbacher, Jerry L; Lynch, Rebekah S; Oetting, Eugene R; Swaim, Randall C (2002). The Driving Anger Expression Inventory: A measure of how people express their anger on the road. Behaviour Research & Therapy, 40, 717-737 Gentile, D. A., Lynch, P. J., Linder, J. R., & Walsh, D. A. (2004). The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent aggressive attitudes and behaviors. Journal of Adolescence, 27, 5-22. Wiesenthal, David L; Hennessy, Dwight; Gibson, Patrick M (2000). The Driving Vengeance Questionnaire (DVQ): The development of a scale to measure deviant drivers' attitudes. Violence & Victims, 15, 115-136 Uhlmann, Eric; Swanson, Jane (2004). Exposure to Violent Video Games Increases Automatic Aggressiveness. Journal of Adolescence, 27, 41-52 Mediating Effect of Trait Hostility between Aggressive Driving and Media Exposure Jonathan Jackson, Lindsey Schaumburg, Erin Dose, Stacy Mann Media Research Lab, Iowa State University Literature Review Violence in the media has consistently been shown to have harmful effects on aggressive tendencies (Carnagey & Anderson, 2004). The General Aggression Model (GAM) was developed by Anderson and colleagues (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Anderson & Bushman, 2002) in an attempt to define links between aggressive thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and attitudes and the apparent effects of violent media. This model describes the process by which different variables can have an affect aggressive behaviours; it also distinguishes between the long- and short-term effects that violence in the media. The GAM predicts that exposure to violent media can have a short term affect on aggression by priming aggressive thoughts, creating aggressive feelings, and increasing arousal, any and all of which may lead to behaviours of aggression. As for the long-term affects, exposure to violent media can reinforce aggressive responses and knowledge structures, while subsequently desensitizing a person to the negative outcomes of violence, potentially leading to increased personality trait hostility (Anderson & Dill, 2000). In a poster presented last spring at the University of Northern Iowa research conference, we described a study in which we found that after factoring for sex, personality trait hostility, overall violent media exposure, and play of Grand Theft Auto (GTA) collectively accounted for 26% of the variance in scores on the Driver Vengeance Questionnaire and 18% of the variance in scores on the General Aggression Driving Behaviours Questionnaire. Using a Johnson’s relative weights analysis we determined that play of GTA individually accounted for 6% of the variance in the Driver Vengeance Questionnaire and 4% of the variance in the General Aggression Driving Behaviours. Despite a smaller proportion of participants reportedly playing GTA we recently replicated this finding. Controlling for the same factors accounted for 20% of the variance on the the Driver Vengeance Questionnaire, with play of GTA individually accounting for 1% of the variance in scores. To expand on this finding we explored the direct and indirect relations between different types of media exposure and measures of road rage, mediated by personality trait hostility. To expand on this finding we explored the direct and indirect relations between types of media exposure and measures of road rage. Figure 1: Significant Pathways Mediated by Hostility Table 1: Correlation Between Media Subscales Pro - Social Media Exposure .36*** .33*** -.08* Personality Trait Hostility .32*** N = 1366 R2=.150 Table 2: Inter-correlations of Driving Behavior Measures .29*** .10** .31*** Relationally Aggressive Media Exposure .39*** -.16*** ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level Figure 2: Significant Direct Pathways R2=.199 N = 674 .11* .21*** R2=.129 N = 471 -.15** .23*** R R2=.178 N = 469 -.10* .33*** R2=.178 N = 674 R2=.147 -.11* N = 672 .18*** .20*** R2=.210 N = 674 -.16** R2=.113 N = 673