Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
TURK PSIKOLOJI DERGISI, cilt.31, sa.78, ss.13-25, 2016 (SSCI)
The main purpose of this study is to identify the relationships between the general stress levels of individuals and the anger components in traffic (expression of anger and angry thoughts), and to investigate the mediating variables between general stress levels and the expression of anger in traffic. Additionally, with the study we aim to determine the effects of demographical variables such as sex and age. The study sample was composed of 457 individuals (208 women, 249 men) between the ages of 20 and 60, who had a driving licence for at least one year. Correlation and mediation analyses revealed expected and significant relationships between the variables. Furthermore, we determined a full mediation role of driver's angry thoughts on the relationship between stress symptoms and driver's expression of anger. In other words, the relationship between the general stress levels of the individual and their expressed anger becomes significant with the mediating effect of the drivers' cognitive processes such as revenge, aggressive, judgmental, and pejorative thinking. The results of the analyses related to the demographic variables indicated that men used anger expressions and angry thoughts more. A similar pattern is true for different age groups. Young people were more prone to use anger expression and angry thoughts. The findings will be discussed in the light of the current literature.