No text Is worth dying for: The role of emotion regulation in a distracted driving campaign

• Main Author: Emma Kesterton Rait
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: European Federation of Psychology Students' Associations 2019-04-01
• Series: Journal of European Psychology Students
• Subjects: emotion regulation; distracted driving; reappraisal; distraction; behaviour change; threat-appeal
• Online Access: https://jeps.efpsa.org/articles/451

<p>Safe driving campaigns frequently use threat-appeals to portray the consequences of risky driving and generate negative emotion. However, increasing perceived risk is often ineffective in motivating behaviour change. A potential approach to increasing the efficacy of safe driving campaigns is the incorporation of emotion regulation strategies. This study used an independent-groups experimental design with a sample of 53 participants (21 males, 32 females) aged 18–65 years (<em>M</em> = 43) to investigate if employing the emotion regulation strategies of distraction and cognitive reappraisal reduces negative emotion while viewing a distracted driving campaign film. Findings revealed that employing emotion regulation strategies significantly reduced negative emotion with a medium effect size, in comparison to the control condition, confirming the hypothesis.</p>