The progression and maintenance of driving anger and aggression: Investigation into the role metacognition, perceptual adjustment, and the selection of specific emotion regulation strategies

Introduction : Aggressive driving behavior remains a persistent road safety concern, yet the self-regulatory processes that underlie its expression are not well understood. This study investigated the theoretical links between metacognitive awareness, specific emotion regulation strategies, dysfunctional anger beliefs, driving anger intensity, and the frequency of aggressive driving behavior. Method: An online cross-sectional survey design was employed with 262 Australian drivers, with the data being analyzed in SPSS and SPSS AMOS. Results: Group comparisons (MANOVA) revealed that individuals who met the criteria for problematic trait anger reported significantly lower metacognitive awareness and use of adaptive regulation strategies, but a greater tendency for blaming others, stronger dysfunctional beliefs, higher driving anger intensity, and greater engagement across various aggressive driving styles, compared to those who did not meet this criteria. Correlation analyses indicated that metacognitive awareness and adaptive emotion regulation strategies were negatively associated with dysfunctional anger beliefs and aggressive driving; whereas maladaptive strategies, particularly rumination, catastrophizing, and other blame, were positively associated with these outcomes. Finally, structural equation modeling demonstrated that metacognitive awareness was indirectly associated with aggressive driving behavior through its sequential associations with emotion regulation strategies, maladaptive anger beliefs, and driving anger. Conclusions: These findings highlight that metacognitive awareness may act as a meaningful upstream self-regulatory factor in the pathway to aggressive driving, and that antisocial beliefs may act as a mechanism to justify behavior if self-regulatory attempts fail. Practical Applications: These findings could inform the development of metacognitive and emotion regulation-based training programs targeting dysregulated driving anger.