Perceptual and Motoz Skills, 1976,42, 467-470. @ Perceprual and Motor Skills 1976 PERSONALITY TRAITS A N D THEIR RELATIONSHIP T O TRAFFIC VIOLATIONS T . D. BROWN Wichita State University

Summary.-There is a relationship between personality traits of enlisted personnel at one mid-west Air Force Base and their frequency of moving violations. The 52 individuals who received one or two moving violations were more emotionnlly stable than the 33 non-offenders and the 18 chronic offenders. Discriminant analysis showed significant differences between the personality characteristics of the occasional offender and the other two groups, but none between the chronic offender and the non-offender. The personality characteristics of the chronic offender resembled those of Zelhart's alcoholic offender and Dunbar's "accident-prone" individual. Additional research using a more heterogeneous sample might make possible identification of the high-frequency traffic violator by means of personality characteristics measured afrer his first offense. The intent of this study was to determine the correlation between traffic violations and personality types, as the first step in studying the possibility of using personality measures to identify potential chronic offenders. Zelhart (1972) has found that responses to the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (Cattell & Stice, 1967) by alcoholics were correlated with frequencies of moving violations. This was accomplished by using the X, Y, and Z personality groups isolated among alcoholics by Lawlis and Rubin (1971). The isolation of these three personality types has been twice duplicated among other groups of alcoholics. Zelhart found that high-frequency violators are less intelligent, more shy, more unsocialized, more aggressive, and more impulsive. The alcoholics with better driving records were more apprehensive, more emotionally stable, and more self-sufficient. The concept of the "accident-prone" personality profile may contribute to the study of personality classifications of high-frequency traffic offenders. Dunbar has desuibed the personality profile of the accident-prone individual. The research on alcoholics and "accidentprone" individuals indicates the potential of correlating personality profiles and frequency of moving violations. The subjects were divided into three groups. The chronic offender group contained 18 individuals, the occasional offender group, 52 individuals, and the non-offender group, 33 individuals. Their approximate age was 2 1 yt. They were all Air Force enlisted males between the ages of 18 and 34 yr. The individuals were identified through a review of the Security Police records at a single midwest Air Force Base. The 18 individuals' in the chronic offender group were the total testable population of individuals who qualified by having 3 or more moving violations in the preceding two-year period.

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(Some chronic offenders had been transferred or separated from the service.) The 52 occasional offenders were the total testable population of individuals who had 1 or 2 moving violations in the preceding period. Thirty-three nonoffenders who demographically matched the chronic offenders by age, rank, and job type were selected from the population of individuals who had no moving violations in the preceding period. There were no significant demographic differences between the occasional offenders and the other two groups as measured by analyses of variance. The traffic records used included civil offenses as well as military offenses. These records are transferred with the individual when he moves. These records should be as complete as any possible. The fact that only individuals from the lower four enlisted ranks had excessive moving violations must raise the question of police bias. Research on bias in police records is not conclusive at this time (McGuire, 1973; Hyman, et al., 1972). Zelhart also raises the question of insufficient corrective action taken toward his alcoholics with many offenses. The relative insignificance of the punishment for the first offense by the non-offender may be responsible for the reduction of apprehension about getting tickers among these personality types and thus increase their probability of receiving more tickets. The instruments were selected to provide wide coverage of the personological domain of individual differences and to relate to the few earlier studies in this area. The Sixteen Personality Factor Qlcestiomuhe (Cattell & Stice, 1967) includes measures of oblique factors in normal personaliry. It has served as an important link to past research in both delinquency and safety areas. The Motivational Analysis Test (Cattell, et al., 1963) used measures of 10 dynamic factors on cwo basic levels: Career, Home, Narcissism, Fear, Super Ego, Selfsentiment, Mating, Aggression, Assertion, and Affection as measured on the integrated and unintegrated scales. The Tension Reduction Test (Klingman, et al., 1972) used measures reacting to tension by tapping the three underlying motivation patterns. These scales purport to measure Tension-seeking, Relaxation-seeking, and search for opportunities to reduce tension. The individuals were told that they were randomly selected to participate in a study on the quality of Air Force life in conjunction with research in preparation for the all-volunteer military. Testing was conducted at the Base Testing Center during duty hours. There were a few individuals in under-manned shops who were members of one of the groups who were not granted permission to take the block of tests. None of the individuals were aware that they had been selected because of their traffic records. A stepwise discriminant analysis1 was applied to the mean Sten scores of 'Stepwise discriminant analysis, revised July 24, 1969, Health Sciences Computing Facility, University of California, Los Angeles. Modified for Wichita State University, Digital

Computer Center, February, 1972.

PERSONALITY AND TRAFFIC VIOLATIONS

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the measures used. The program was carried out to 10 steps. ported are significant ( p = .01).

All F values re-

RESULTS The chronic offenders were more experimenting, showed abstract thinking, were assertive, tension-seeking, tender-minded, and suspicious. The non-offenders were shrewd, had high tension with respect to parents, had a high desire to reduce tension, and a high desire to avoid tension, and to be tough-minded. The occasional offenders were more forthright, conservative, concrete, humble, trusting, and showed low tension. TABLE 1

DISCRWINATING VARIABLES FOR SEPARATING CHRONIC OFFBNDEXS (CO) , OCCASIONAL OFFENDERS( W ) , A N D NON-OFFENDBRS (NO) Step

Variable Added

High End

Low End

Ratio to Enter

1 Scale N ( 1 6 PF) ', Shrewd/Forthrighr NO 00 18.22 2 Scale QI ( 1 6 PF) , Experimenting/Conservative CO 00 8.11 3 Scale B ( 1 6 PF) , Concrete/Absuaa Thinking 00 CO 6.04 4 Scale E ( 16 PF) , Assertive/Humble CO 00 5.90 5 Home (MAT-U) NO CO 5.06 NO 00 4.85 6 T/R Scale (TRT) NO 00 8.06 7 R Scale ( T R T ) 8 T Scale ( T R T ) CO 00 9.25 9 Scale I ( 16 PF) ,Tender/Tough-minded CO NO 5.26 10 Scale L ( 1 6 PF) , Suspicious/Trusting CO 00 4.24 *Code: 16 PF = 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire; MAT-U = The Unintegrated Scale of the Motivational Analysis Test; T R T = Tension Reduction Test.

The chronic offender in this case was very similar in personality to the high offender in Zelhart's study as is shown in Table 3. They also had traits similar to Dunbar's "accident-prone" personality individual. There was no correlation between personality patterns of chronic offenders and frequency of reported accidents. Dunbar ( 1943) suggests that this "accident-prone" personality is an "after the fact" indicator and is not a predictor. It seems that the non-offenders resemble the personalities of the chronic TABLE 2

CLASS~PI~ATION EPPICIHNCY OF DISCRMNANT FUNC~ONS* Actual Groups Non-offenders

Classified Groups Occasional Offenders

Chronic Offenders

Non-offenders 24 1 8 Occasional Offenders 4 44 4 Chronic Offenders 6 0 12 "This table shows the overlapping of traits and the strength of group affiliations.

T. D. BROWN TABLE 3 F RAnos FOR GROUPDISCRIMINATION(AFTHR10 STEPS) Offenders --

Non-offenders

Chronic Offenders

--

Chronic Occasional

2.18 17.65

offenders more closely than they do those of the occasional offender. The discrimination between personalities of the chronic offenders and the non-offenders is nonsignificant. he occasional offender group is the most stable of the three in all areas. An evaluation of Tables 1 and 2 supports the conclusion that there is a significant difference in the personality traits of the occasional offenders and those of the other two groups. Conlmitting the first offense seems to be more important than the specific personality traits as an indicator of differentiation between the chronic offender group and the non-offender group. There are several implications of these results. (1) Through further research, individuals might possibly be classified into one of two groups of traffic offenders by their personality traits, an emotionally stable group, which is the occasional offender group, and the emotionally unstable group or the chronic offenders and the non-offenders. ( 2 ) There is also some potential for reducing the increase in numbers of chronic offenders in the second group if these personality traits were to be utilized in developing sufficient corrective action after the first ticket to discourage further offenses. REFERENCES CATTELL,R. B., RADCLIFFE,J. A,, & SWENEY,A. B. Motivational Analysis Test. Champaign, Ill.: Institute for Personality & Ability Testing, 1963. CATTBLL,R. B., & STICE,S. Sixteen Personality Factor Quertionnaire. Champaign, Ill.: Institute for Personality & Ability Testing, 1967. DUNBAR,F. Psychosomatic diagnosir. New York : Hoeber, 1943. HYMAN, M M., HELRICH,A. R.. & BESSON, G. Ascertaining police bias in arrest for drunken driving. Q u ~ ~ e r]ournal ly of Studies on Alcohol, 1972, 33, 148-159. KLINGMAN,B., MCCORMICK,G., & SWENEY,A. B. Tension Redrcction Test. Wichita, Kan.: Test Systems, 1972. LAWLIS,G. F., & RUBIN,S. E. 16 PF study of personality patterns in alcoholics. Quartedy Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 1971, 32, 318-327. MCGUIRE,F. L. The nature of bias in official accident and violation records. Journal of Applied Psychology, 1973, 57, 300-305. ZELHART,P. F. Types of alcoholics and their relationship to traffic violations. Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 1972, 33, 811-813.

Accepted December 9, 1975.

Personality traits and their relationship to traffic violations.

There is a relationship between personality traits of enlisted personnel at one mid-west Air Force Base and their frequency of moving violations. The ...
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