Impulsivity and risky decision making among taxi drivers in Hong Kong : an event-related potential study

Andy S. K. Cheng, K. H. Ting, Karen P. Y. Liu, Yutao Ba

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    35 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Taxi drivers play an important role in providing safe and professional public transport services. However, they tend to be more involved than other professional driver groups in accidents caused by deliberate recklessness. This study used an event-related potential (ERP) experiment to examine risk-taking behavior arising from impulsivity by comparing the underlying neural processes of taxi drivers with and without traffic offence records in Hong Kong. A sample of 15 traffic offenders and 15 nonoffenders, matched by sociodemographic characteristics, was recruited. The results show that the offender group demonstrated significantly less negative-going (less negative) feedback-related negativity but more positive-going (more positive) feedback-related P300 when than with their nonoffending counterparts. These findings show that taxi drivers with traffic offence records were less sensitive to the consequences of behavior and more attuned to the magnitude of potential reward. In addition, behavioral data revealed that they were more willing to make risky decisions. All these characteristics pertain to impulsive personality traits. Based on these findings, we can conclude that the offenders in this sample were more impulsive than their nonoffending counterparts.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article numberpt. B
    Pages (from-to)387-394
    Number of pages8
    JournalAccident Analysis and Prevention
    Volume95
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2016

    Bibliographical note

    Publisher Copyright:
    © 2015 Elsevier Ltd

    Keywords

    • Hong Kong (China)
    • risk-taking (psychology)
    • taxicab drivers
    • traffic violations

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