Social facilitation and driver behaviour

Audience effects on individual behaviour have often been interpreted in terms of increased arousal, which in turn enhances the emission of dominant responses. However, such drive-based explanations do not readily fit all of the evidence on audience effects. The present study examined the influence on driver behaviour of the presence of a passenger. The main findings were that the incidence of both signalling and speeding appeared to be reduced by the presence of certain types of passenger. These results seem to support a control theory rather than a drive-based account of social facilitation. In addition, the incidence of close following and speeding differed significantly across type of driver. Taken together, these results suggest ways for improving road safety propaganda based on the specific norms salient for specific categories of road user