Because of the increase in the numbers of vehicles and drivers, traffic congestion causes anger on the road to occur frequently. In addition to the impact of personality traits, the information processing of emotional stimuli also influences drivers' behaviours. Research is needed to understand how drivers interact with anger stimuli and the differences in processing anger information between safe and dangerous drivers. This study aimed to explore the differences between safe and dangerous drivers' negativity bias towards anger and discuss the causes of dangerous driving behaviours from the perspective of information processing. In total, 34 participants were divided into a safe group and dangerous group based on their traffic violation history and driving behaviour trends. Participants completed an emotional Stroop task with event-related potential (ERP) data. The results showed that the P200 amplitudes of dangerous drivers were significantly reduced compared with those of safe drivers when processing angry and neutral faces, indicating the inadequate assessment of angry faces in early emotional processing. The N170 amplitudes of dangerous drivers were significantly reduced compared with those of safe drivers when processing angry faces, demonstrating decreased negative input that is potentially related to dispositional fearlessness and uncaring traits. This study revealed negativity bias towards anger in dangerous drivers based on ERP evidence, enabling us to understand the differences in driving behaviours from the perspective of physiological mechanisms.
Keywords: Dangerous drivers; ERPs; Emotional Stroop; Negativity bias.
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