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Interview with Leon James
Basically i would like to know if we can associate to each type of car a peculiar personality. This imply that you should think about European cars, not American ones. For example: can we say that who is driving a big BMW or a SUV has an aggressive personality? Can we say that who is driving a Mini is an introvert person? Can we say that who is driving a family car (Volvo) is a very caring person? Etc.... If you have any research, any study or any personal opinion in this topic is perfect for the article.
The only data I have on this issue is this article:
The Effect of Age, Gender, and Type of Car Driven
Across the States
http://www.drdriving.org/surveys/interpretations.htm
Here is the summary:
The pattern of results thus far lead me to the following conclusions:
Aggressive driving is made up of a
syndrome of habits that stick together
with plenty of individual variation.
Young drivers are more aggressive in all
driving behaviors than older
drivers; senior drivers are the least aggressive.
Men are more aggressive than women when they drive sports cars and light
trucks (S-10, Pick-up, Ram, Ranger, F-150, Silverado, Dakota, etc.); women
are more aggressive than men when they drive SUVs and luxury cars. For
economy and family cars, it depends on the specific behavior.
There appear to be three psychological categories of vehicles people
drive: tough driving cars (sports, light trucks, SUVs), soft driving
cars
(economy, family), and special driving cars (vans, luxury). Each of these
psychological categories has its own
aggressive driving syndrome that
distinguishes it from the others.
It is evident that aggressive driving is a cultural norm that is
generationally transmitted as a habit
imbibed in childhood when riding with parents and reinforced by repeated
media portrayals of drivers
behaving badly. To get us out of this, I propose a program of
Lifelong Driver
Education.
====================
You can take a look at the specific data in the article.
You can also explore these:
Moving Relationships: Befriending the Automobile to Relieve Anxiety
http://www.drdriving.org/misc/anthropomorph.html
The importance of naming your car
http://www.helium.com/tm/586697/naming-called-anthropomorhism-people
Are SUV Drivers More Aggressive? Discussion With Students
-- Dr. Leon James
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s2000/stillman/suv.htm
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