Effects of fear-arousing components of driver education on students' safety attitudes and simulator performance.

Despite the importance of driving safety, there is little evidence that traditional driver education courses are effective. A 2X2X2 factorial experiment examined the effects of (a) the noxiousness of an automobile accident, (b) one's probability of being in an accident, and (c) the efficacy of safe-driving practices on 144 high school driver education students. The results disclosed that increments in the noxiousness variable greatly reduced error rates on driving simulators. Additionally, if students behaved negligently, driving performance was improved by increasing either their perception of the severity of accidents or their chances of being in one. Advantages of discovering effective variables linked to general psychological theories (i.e., expectancy-value theories) were reviewed and implications for implementing these principles in driver education were discussed. /Author/