Elsevier

Safety Science

Volume 47, Issue 9, November 2009, Pages 1277-1283
Safety Science

Effects of gender, sex-stereotype conformity, age and internalization on risk-taking among adolescent pedestrians

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2009.03.010Get rights and content

Abstract

The objective of this study is to explore the effects of sex-stereotype conformity and the internalization of traffic rules on risk-taking among adolescent pedestrians. Sex-stereotype conformity, danger perception, internalization of traffic rules and risky behaviors self-reported by 278 adolescent pedestrians (130 boys and 148 girls) aged 12–16 were measured. The results show an effect of sex-stereotype conformity on the internalization of traffic rules and risky behavior. Furthermore, the results show an effect of internalizing traffic rules on the risky pedestrian behaviors. Thus, it appears that, more than biological sex, it is the level of masculinity and the level of internalization of the rules that explain gender differences in risk-taking among adolescent pedestrians.

Introduction

Gender differences are well known in accidentology and manifest themselves very early on in different types of accidents. A UNICEF report (2001) thus showed that, in OECD countries, boys between the ages of 1 and 14 have a 70% greater probability than girls of dying in an accident. The difference between the sexes increases further until it reaches a maximum among adults of eight men killed for two women between the ages of 15 and 59 (Assailly, 2001). This differential is not unique to France and can be found in all countries. Boys have more frequent accidents (Baker et al., 1992, Rivara and Mueller, 1987) and more serious accidents (Rivara et al., 1982) than girls, and risk exposure does not appear to be the only explanatory variable (Routledge et al., 1996, Waylen and McKenna, 2002). This phenomenon can notably be explained by greater risk-taking among boys (Byrnes et al., 1999, Coppens and Gentry, 1991, Morrongiello and Dawber, 1999).

Numerous psychologists indeed ascribe the male–female difference in risk-taking to gender roles and gender stereotypes (Byrnes et al., 1999, d’Acremont and Van der Linden, 2006, Rowe et al., 2004), which can be defined as the set of beliefs about what it means to be a male or a female in terms of physical appearance, attitudes, interests, psychological traits, social relationships and occupations (Ashmore et al., 1986, Deaux and Lewis, 1984, Huston, 1983, Huston, 1985). In particular, gender stereotypes about risk-taking characterize it as a typically masculine type of behavior (Bem, 1981, Morrongiello and Hogg, 2004). This interpretation is consistent with gender norms about risk-taking (Yagil, 1998). Recognizing certain female-stereotyped traits in oneself, however, does not mean seeing oneself as having all the components of femininity, nor even not recognizing in oneself certain masculine traits (Bem, 1974, Bem, 1981). Thus, conformity to gender stereotypes can explain why males and females differ in risk-taking, but also help to understand differences in male groups and female groups in risk-taking. It was not until recently that the effects of sex-stereotype conformity were taken into account in explaining differences between males and females in the area of risk. Recent studies have demonstrated that sex stereotypes are more predictive of risk-taking than gender (Raithel, 2003).

It has thus been shown that strong conformity to masculine stereotypes – whether the individual is a man or a woman – tends to increase risk-taking, in sports (Cazenave et al., 2003), in driving (Özkan and Lajunen, 2006) and risk-taking in general (Raithel, 2003).

For some authors, gender only predicts traffic accidents in that it influences traffic violations (Lawton et al., 1997).

Indeed, research on adults has brought out gender differences in compliance with traffic rules. Dangerous behaviors and involvement in accidents among adult drivers were shown to be more often due to rule-breaking in males than in females (Harré et al., 1996, Simon and Corbett, 1996, Yagil, 1998). Moreover, previous studies have shown that male pedestrians violate more rules than female pedestrians do (Moyano Diaz, 2002, Rosenbloom et al., 2004, Yagil, 2000). But traffic behaviors are also likely to be influenced by attitudes toward rules. Regarding attitudes toward laws and violations, Tyler (1990) argued that there were two different types of motives in obeying the law. Instrumental motives are related to the gains and losses involved in compliance and non-compliance with the law; compliance with the law is linked to external forces. Normative motives result from internalization of the law and a feeling of obligation to obey the law in accordance with personal values.

Concerning compliance with traffic rules, Yagil (1998) found that male drivers expressed a lower level of normative motives to comply with traffic laws than did female drivers. Then, females seem to have internalized traffic rules more than males. How can this gender difference in rule internalization be explained?

Internalization is the process by which individuals acquire social values and prescriptions from external sources and transform these into personal attributes, values and self-regulated behaviors (Grolnick et al., 1997). Structural–developmental theory (Colby and Kohlberg, 1987, Kohlberg, 1966, Piaget, 1932) and social theory (Baumrind, 1978, Baumrind, 1989, Baumrind, 1991, Brody and Shaffer, 1982, Grusec and Goodnow, 1994, Hoffman, 1983) of internalization have explained mechanisms which drive internalization process. Nevertheless, social domain theory (Nucci and Turiel, 1978, Smetana, 1997, Turiel, 1983, Turiel, 1998) has pointed out that differential social interactions with different classes of rules, events and actions lead individuals to build different domains of social knowledge. Thus, four domains of social knowledge where behaviors and rules are related have been differentiated (Nucci, 1981, Nucci and Santiago Nucci, 1982, Tisak and Turiel, 1984, Tisak and Turiel, 1988, Turiel, 1983).

The moral domain, made up of actions which compromise the physical and psychological well-being of others (hitting, stealing, mocking); the conventional domain, focusing on behaviors ensuring the cohesion of the group and its functioning and subject to the presence of an authority (gender roles, school rules); the personal domain including actions left to each individual’s free choice (tastes, friends); the prudential domain centered around behaviors relative to one’s own physical and psychological well-being (hygiene, protection).

Rules that lie within the moral and prudential domains – relative to one’s own well-being and that of others – form a set of internalized rules that are hard for an individual to transgress (Smetana, 1985, Smetana, 1999, Tisak and Turiel, 1984). Studies on antisocial behaviors have shown the relationship between delinquent behaviors and the lack of internalization among young people (Tavecchio et al., 1999).

Furthermore, research has shown the relationship between risk-taking among adolescents and the categorization of social knowledge on drug consumption (Nucci et al., 1991) and on various types of risky behavior (Kuther and Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2000). In both cases, adolescents involved in risky behaviors tend to classify this type of behavior in the personal or conventional domains, whereas adolescents who are not involved classify these behaviors in the prudential and moral domains. Thus, internalization, through its effect on conformity with rules, can influence risk-taking.

The aim of this study is to explain gender differences in risk-taking among adolescent pedestrians, using sex-stereotype conformity and internalization of traffic rules. Research has shown that males take more risks and conform less to traffic rules than females do; it also shows that conformity among females appears to be due to a greater internalization of traffic rules. The theory of social domains explains that this internalization is linked to the classification of rules as being part of the moral and prudential domains; moreover, research has shown that individuals who take risks preferentially classify the behaviors they engage in as being in the personal and conventional domains.

Given the research results, we assume that gender differences in risk-taking are due to the differences in the internalization of traffic rules. Moreover, given the results of research on the relationships between gender stereotypes and risk-taking, we state the hypothesis that the greater risk-taking among masculine individuals is due to a weaker internalization of traffic rules. In short, we suppose that sex-stereotype conformity, through the internalization of rules, has an influence on the propensity to take risks as a pedestrian. Experimental protocol was carried out among adolescents for testing this hypothesis.

Section snippets

Participants

Two hundred and seventy-eight adolescents (130 boys and 148 girls) recruited at two middle schools, divided into two school levels: seventh grade (n = 130, 60 boys, 70 girls, M = 12.17 years old, SD = .53, min = 11 years 3 months, max = 14 years) and 10th grade (n = 148, 70 boys, 78 girls, M = 15.29 years old, SD = .69, min = 14 years 4 months, max = 17 years) assigned to four age groups: under 12 years (N = 75, 38 boys, 37 girls), 12–13 years (N = 64, 28 boys, 36 girls), 13–15 years (N = 74, 31 boys, 43 girls) and over

Gender identity

A series of means comparisons was carried out on the effects of gender, school level and age group on the adolescents’ level of masculinity and femininity (Table 1). The t-tests showed that the girls had a significantly higher score than the boys concerning feminine stereotype conformity (t(276) = −6.57, p < .0001). The boys had a masculine stereotype conformity score significantly higher than the girls (t(276) = 5.37, p < .0001). The Student’s t did not show any significant effect of the school level

Discussion

The aim of this study is to explain gender differences in risk-taking among adolescent pedestrians, using sex-stereotype conformity and internalization of traffic rules. The results indicate that gender differences in risk-taking can indeed be explained by gender differences in internalization by domain. To our knowledge, this is the first study to document the internalization of traffic rules by adolescents (Granié, 2007), and few studies have directly examined adult motives for compliance

Conclusions

In educational terms, it appears that, to be effective in preventing risky behavior, we should work to encourage “committed compliance” (Kochanska and Aksan, 1995), which is a matter of internalization, rather than “contextual compliance” – i.e. submission to demands due to the presence of an authority figure, with no sincere commitment –, which is not associated with the internalization of norms (Kochanska, 2002) and lies more in the conventional domain (Turiel, 1998). Then, communication mode

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grant from the Road Traffic and Safety Direction of the French Ministry of Transport in the programme of research, experimentation and innovation in land transport (PREDIT). We extend our sincere thanks to: the children for their enthusiastic participation; the principals and teachers for welcoming us; Sonia Girault and Steena Thiruthuvarajan for assistance with data collection.

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