The driver's angry thoughts questionnaire: A measure of angry cognitions when driving

• Published in: Cognitive therapy and research 2003-08, Vol.27 (4), p.383-402
• Main Authors: DEFFENBACHER, Jerry L, PETRILLI, Randal T, LYNCH, Rebekah S, OETTING, Eugene R, SWAIM, Randall C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aggressiveness; Anger; Applied psychology; Behavior; Biological and medical sciences; Cognition & reasoning; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Independent study; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Questionnaires; Transportation. City planning
• ISSN: 0147-5916; 1573-2819
• DOI: 10.1023/A:1025403712897

Five forms of driving-related angry cognitions were identified--Judgmental/Disbelieving Thinking (α = .94), Pejorative Labeling/Verbally Aggressive Thinking (α = .92), Revenge/Retaliatory Thinking (α = .93), Physically Aggressive Thinking (α = .93), and Coping Self-instruction (α = .83). Pejorative labeling/verbally aggressive, physically aggressive, and revengeful/retaliatory thinking correlated positively with each other and with driving anger, aggressive driving anger expression, aggression, and risky driving behavior. Coping self-instruction tended to correlate negatively with these variables. Judgmental/disbelieving thinking correlated positively with other forms of angry thinking, but was only somewhat correlated with other variables. Driving-related angry thoughts, except coping self-instruction, correlated positively with general hostile automatic thoughts. Differences in strengths of correlations with specific variables, and contributions to regression analyses supported the discriminant and incremental validity of driving-related angry thoughts. Implications for cognitive processes in anger and interventions were discussed.