Abstract
Locus of control (LOC) reflects a person’s perception of events as within his or her internal control or under the control of external factors. The main purpose of this study was to reconfirm the factor structure and items of the Traffic Locus of Control (T-LOC) scale among Chinese drivers and investigate the influences of drivers’ LOC on their dangerous and positive driving behavior. A total of 299 drivers completed the Chinese version of the T-LOC scale, personality scales of sensation seeking, anger and altruism, driver behavior questionnaire (DBQ) and positive driving behavior scale (PDBS). A 17-item four-factor Chinese version of the T-LOC scale was verified to be appropriate in China. More importantly, after controlling the impacts of demographic variables and three personalities, self-attribution positively predicted driving errors. For the external LOC, other drivers negatively predicted positive driving behavior, while vehicle/environment positively predicted positive driving behavior. Additionally, fate attribution was a positive predictor of all kinds of dangerous driving behavior. In conclusion, this study further validated the Chinese version of the T-LOC scale and revealed the impact of drivers’ LOC based on a comprehensive consideration of driving behavior, including not only dangerous driving behavior, but also positive driving behavior.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Arkush, R.D.: “If man works hard the land will not be lazy” entrepreneurial values in North Chinese peasant proverbs. Mod. China 10(4), 461–479 (1984)
Bentler, P.M., Bonett, D.G.: Significance tests and goodness of fit in the analysis of covariance structures. Psychol. Bull. 88(3), 588 (1980)
Goldberg, L.R., et al.: The international personality item pool and the future of public-domain personality measures. J. Res. Pers. 40(1), 84–96 (2006)
Lemarié, L., Bellavance, F., Chebat, J.C.: Regulatory focus, time perspective, locus of control and sensation seeking as predictors of risky driving behaviors. Accid. Anal. Prev. 127, 19–27 (2019)
Leung, K., et al.: Social axioms: the search for universal dimensions of general beliefs about how the world functions. J. Cross Cult. Psychol. 33(3), 286–302 (2002)
Măirean, C., Havârneanu, G.M., Popușoi, S.A., Havarneanu, C.E.: Traffic locus of control scale–Romanian version: psychometric properties and relations to the driver’s personality, risk perception, and driving behavior. Transport. Res. F: Traffic Psychol. Behav. 45, 131–146 (2017)
Montag, I., Comrey, A.L.: Internality and externality as correlates of involvement in fatal driving accidents. J. Appl. Psychol. 72(3), 339 (1987)
Özkan, T., Lajunen, T.: Multidimensional traffic locus of control scale (T-LOC): factor structure and relationship to risky driving. Personal. Individ. Differ. 38(3), 533–545 (2005)
Özkan, T., Lajunen, T., Kaistinen, J.: Traffic locus of control, driving skills and attitudes towards in-vehicle technologies (ISA & ACC). In: Proceedings of the 18th international cooperation on theories and concepts in traffic safety (ICTCT) (2005)
Parker, D., Lajunen, T., Stradling, S.: Attitudinal predictors of interpersonally aggressive violations on the road. Transport. Res. F: Traffic Psychol. Behav. 1(1), 11–24 (1998)
Reason, J., Manstead, A., Stradling, S., Baxter, J., Campbell, K.: Errors and violations on the roads: a real distinction? Ergonomics 33(10–11), 1315–1332 (1990)
Rotter, J.B.: Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychol. Monogr. Gen. Appl. 80(1), 1 (1966)
Sarma, K.M., Carey, R.N., Kervick, A.A., Bimpeh, Y.: Psychological factors associated with indices of risky, reckless and cautious driving in a national sample of drivers in the Republic of Ireland. Accid. Anal. Prev. 50, 1226–1235 (2013)
Shen, B., Ge, Y., Qu, W., Sun, X., Zhang, K.: The different effects of personality on prosocial and aggressive driving behaviour in a Chinese sample. Transport. Res. F: Traffic Psychol. Behav. 56, 268–279 (2018)
Sun, L., Ma, Y., Hua, L.: Adaptation and validity of the traffic locus of control scale in Chinese drivers. Personality Individ. Differ. 159, 109886 (2020)
Warner, H.W., Özkan, T., Lajunen, T.: Can the traffic locus of control (T-LOC) scale be successfully used to predict Swedish drivers’ speeding behaviour? Accid. Anal. Prev. 42(4), 1113–1117 (2010)
Yang, J., Du, F., Qu, W., Gong, Z., Sun, X.: Effects of personality on risky driving behavior and accident involvement for Chinese drivers. Traffic Inj. Prev. 14(6), 565–571 (2013)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Qu, W., Luo, X., Hou, J., Ge, Y. (2023). Impact of Locus of Control on Dangerous Driving Behavior and Positive Driving Behavior in China. In: Stephanidis, C., Antona, M., Ntoa, S., Salvendy, G. (eds) HCI International 2023 Posters. HCII 2023. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1836. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36004-6_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36004-6_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-36003-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-36004-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)