Cross-cultural perspective of driving style in young adults: Psychometric evaluation through the analysis of the Multidimensional Driving Style Inventory

Self-evaluating methods are frequently used to identify driving styles. Among others, one of the most commonly used questionnaires is the Multidimensional Driving Style Inventory (MDSI), developed for the Israeli population. Because of the extensive use of the questionnaire, the present paper aims to validate an Italian version and to confirm the 8-factor structure of the original one, i.e, dissociative, anxious, risky, angry, high-velocity, distress-reduction, patient, and careful driving style. The Italian version of the MDSI was filled out by 561 Italian drivers, who had a driving license for at least 1 year. A confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) was conducted on the 44-item of the translated questionnaire showing not so good values of the goodness of fit tests (SRMR = 0.085; RMSEA = 0.063). The total-item correlation of each scale indicated that 4 items had a low index of total-item correlation. A second CFA was conducted on the remaining 40 items: goodness fit parameters improved (SRMR = 0.0685, RMSEA = 0.0584). Previous validations of the original version of MDSI for different populations (Argentine, Romanian, Chinese, Malaysian, Butch and Belgian) showed several critical issues in confirming the original structure. In the Italian version of MDSI validated in the present paper, the original 8-factor structure was confirmed by removing the 4 items which did not properly contribute to the factors. The results not only confirmed the usefulness of the MDSI in assessing driving style but they also indicated that the concept of driving style is considered in the same way in Italy and Israel, even though traffic rules are different. The latter consideration raises interesting questions for future research concerning cross-cultural comparisons of driving behavior in different countries.