How Do Emotions Affect Your Driving?

Whether it’s a great day, a bad day, or just a boring one, sometimes it is nice to go on a drive. It’s like taking a walk but better; you don’t have to strain your feet all that much or be bothered by the weather. It’s something you can do without even thinking twice.

Did you ever wonder if those emotions you’re carrying have an impact on your driving? Turns out, they do.

The Impact of Individual Emotions

When you’re in deep thought, it’s easy to lose focus of the road without realizing it. Different emotions affect our attention in different ways. Here are a few ways emotions may affect you while driving. 

Anger and Aggression

Anger is a common emotion. In fact, just being on the road with unruly drivers can make you angry. It’s a bit difficult to escape this one.

Anger causes changes in our body like increased heart rate and blood pressure, etc. When you’re on the road, this can be a dangerous thing for you and those around you. Some studies have shown that traffic violations can cause frustration in the driver.

Studies conducted in a simulator have shown that drivers were more likely to get angry when they had to slow down because of other drivers or pedestrians. People really like to maintain their pace. The results also pointed out that you don’t have to be angry when you turn on the ignition. Other drivers’ behavior can also anger you to a point of distraction and danger.

Of course, these responses may vary depending on the age, gender, and culture of any given driver. For instance, drivers in the UK were more riled up about reckless and impatient driving. But those in Finland got mad at inconsiderate driving. A study by Deffenbacher and others (2003) found that those who are angry tend to drive faster and take more risks.

Fear and Anxiety

Fear is a basic emotion and it creates physical changes like high heart rate and low skin temperature. In fact, fear is also uncontrollable in some situations. If you are terrified of spiders, you can’t control your fear right away. You can train to manage it but in that first instance, it’s there. Fear also leads to our fight or flight response.

Anxiety is a bit more tricky. Some say it is a reaction to an unresolved fear-related situation. This means, when you don’t have a reaction to a scary situation, your mind and body feel tense and uneasy. This causes worry and you can lose focus.

There was a study where people with low, medium and high anxiety were given a task. They were distracted with neutral, positive, physically and socially threatening stimuli. In that study, those with low and medium levels of anxiousness (not anxiety as a disorder) were less distracted than those with high levels of anxiousness. They also reacted strongly to physically threatening words. Now imagine driving along that guy on the road.

British-German psychologist, Hans Eysenck argues that anxiety varies from person to person. But philosopher and psychologist Shlomo Shoham said that anxious drivers react very quickly to certain road situations and it may lead them to commit traffic violations.

Anxious drivers are often less safe than drivers who are calm and level headed. Some drivers become very cautious if certain situations on the road make them anxious. For instance, some people get very nervous on freeways that have three or more lanes. 

Anxiety has an impact on your ability to process information, which could have a direct effect on your driving ability. Whether you become more careful or reckless due to anxiety depends on the person and their ability to cope with the situation.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to reduce anxiety on the road. 

Sadness and Rumination

Sadness and rumination could also be bad for driving. Your attention is elsewhere, your focus is shaken, you’re lost in thought, and it makes you slow to react. If you didn’t know it already, that is the recipe for disaster.

Sadness interferes with the amount of attention you can give to a task. There aren’t too many studies that connect sadness and driving, but here’s what we can learn from the available ones.

Unlike anger, other drivers and traffic situations don’t usually make you sad. Some studies have found that emotional problems did not lead to any kind of risky driving. But other studies identified that depression is a negative emotion and that can lead to road accidents, especially in young people.

Grief has the same result. A lot of drivers who lost someone said that when grief took over, they didn’t even know what they were doing. But scientifically, we only know that there is an indirect connection and it cannot be ignored.

Research tells us that depressed drivers have had a slow response time, which could lead to accidents. This is a result of indecision and also not being able to react because of the mental aspects of the disease itself.

Positive Emotions

Do you have that one upbeat playlist that makes you drive faster when you listen to it? Positive emotions can be distracting as well if they are not kept in check. A study by Brodsky in 2002 showed that fast tempo music led to increased energy and excitement. However, that also led to an increase in the average speed, a number of traffic violations, and even accidents.

Another study showed that drivers are prone to tapping their fingers on the steering wheel, singing, or whistling. These are extra tasks for the brain and it took away from the attention paid to the road.

Conclusion

Whether you are angry or excited, it is easy to get distracted while driving. Negative emotions are likely to do more harm than positive ones. But all emotions are distracting nonetheless.

Now that you are aware of this phenomenon, try to stay as level headed as possible behind the wheel. If someone cuts you off, let it go. It’s not our job to police their bad behavior, and we can’t control the actions of other people.

If something is bothering you, try to switch your train of thought to something pleasant or happy. Concentrate on some aspect of driving. Now is a great time to practice that situational awareness by watching cars all around you, and not just in front of you. Focusing on the task at hand may be just what you need to clear your mind and leave those negative emotions in the dust.