Driver personality and anthropomorphic attributions of vehicle personality relate to reported aggressive driving tendencies

Research in the area of driver anger and aggression has shown that several personality factors contribute to the growing problem. Pilot research indicated that drivers attribute human qualities such as a gender and name to their vehicles which suggested that this tendency to anthropomorphize the vehicle might predict aggressive driving tendencies. Two hundred four undergraduates completed personality inventories for both themselves and their vehicle along with several measures of driving anger and aggressive tendencies. Results suggest that driver and vehicle personalities were related but distinct, indicating that drivers were not just projecting their own personality onto the vehicle. Driver and vehicle personality scores were correlated with several indexes of aggressive driving tendencies. In some cases, vehicle personality predicted aggressive driving better than driver personality. However, initial decision of drivers to anthropomorphize did not relate to differences in aggressive driving tendencies. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.