22/04/2010
Driving whilst jealous could lead to road rage, says US Professor
by William Hobson
Driving in a jealous state of mind could negatively effect your behaviour on the road, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Delaware has said.
Professor Steven Most says that his research on jealousy has shown that though such highly charged emotional states have a "very different" effect on driving ability than alcohol, they can still have a detrimental result on conduct whilst driving. He says that though driving drunk will impair motor, response and judgement skills, envy is less likely to result in terrible driving - but could lead to increased anger on the road.
"Our brains seem to be wired to prioritise particularly emotional information around us whether we want to or not," says Professor Most. "We often zoom in on emotional information to such a degree that it disrupts our ability to perceive other things in the environment. This is something called 'emotion-induced blindness."
"What our research involving jealousy shows is that this effect becomes even stronger when we are feeling very intense emotions."
Professor Most explains that when in such anxious states of mind, the tendency to zoom in on negative emotional information is drastically heightened - distorting our perception to focus on unpleasant emotional stimuli excessively. "Although driving while in a jealous state, by itself, might not be so bad, " he says, "it might come into play when someone passes something unpleasant."
He says that by responding to negative stimuli more dominantly - and by unconsciously trying to satisfy the curiosity associated with feeling of jealousy - people could become a greater hazard on the road than a non-jealous driver. For those who can't help their subconscious feelings of envy and worry about their safe conduct on the road, one way to overcome jealousy is hypnotherapy.
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