Crossing at a red light: Behaviour of individuals and groups

The present study examines the road behaviour of individual pedestrians at an intersection with a traffic signal compared to groups of pedestrians at the same intersection.In total, 1392 pedestrians were unobtrusively observed in an urban setting at a pedestrian street crossing of undivided streets; 842 were female (60.5%) and 550 were male (39.5%). The observations took place between 7:30 and 8:30 in the morning. Chi-square test revealed the males crossed on red more frequently than females. Logistic regression predicting red-light crossing for pedestrians arriving during a red-light phase indicated that, apart from gender, the tendency to cross on red was greater when there were fewer people waiting at the curb, either when a pedestrian arrived, or joining after arrival. The discussion refers to the theoretical explanations concerning the theory of ‘social control’ and to some practical implications of the results, such as using the positive value of social control in media campaigns and adjusting the red light duration in order to encourage people to obey the traffic light.     

Sensation seeking and risk taking in mortality salience

This study aimed to examine responses of sensation seekers concerning their tendency to take risks in driving in mortality salience. Ss completed the Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking scale (SSS). Two weeks later Ss were divided into two groups; the experimental group, which was exposed to a terrifying video film dealing with consequences of risky driving and a control group with a nature video film. After watching the films, each participant was asked to complete a risk-taking inventory (RT), which referred to the extent of risk s/he would take while driving. High sensation seekers reported more risk taking in driving than sensation avoiders. Furthermore, a significant interaction was found between Mortality Salience and Sensation Seeking regarding risky driving, especially speeding. The implications of these findings on the well-established educational approaches based on terror are presented in the discussion.     

Assessing daily management in childhood diabetes

One hundred sixty-eight patients with childhood diabetes (6 to 19 years of age) and their parents participated in 24-hr recall interviews concerning daily diabetes management behavior. Each patient and parent was interviewed independently on three separate occasions. The information obtained was used to construct measures of 13 different adherence behaviors. Parent-patient agreement was good to excellent for most of the 13 behaviors. Agreement was influenced by the patient's age, with the most consistently high parent-child agreement found in the 10- to 15-year-old age group. Factor analysis of the 13 adherence behaviors resulted in a five-factor solution accounting for 70.6% of the variance. Adherence in childhood diabetes appears to be a complex construct, consisting of at least five different components unrelated to each other. Teenagers in this sample were less adherent than their younger counterparts on most of the adherence measures studied.