Emotions are one of the factors that define us as human yet, many people do not
truly understand the extent to which our emotions are influenced by the external
environment and how we allow emotions to control our behaviour which often
translates into physiological and physical risk. The ability to recognise and manage
our emotions is central to how we perceive and react to everyday life.
Eskom as an organisation is totally committed to providing a safe environment for all
their employees and no cost is spared in provided what they believe to be the best
education and training to support their ZERO HARM philosophy. The question is
however, with the unquestionable commitment to safety from management and staff
alike; why is the vehicle incident rate (VIR) remaining at unacceptably high levels?
This study was intended to identify the degree to which emotional intelligence, with
specific reference to self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and
managing relationshipâs impact on driver specific attitude and behaviour.
Emotional self-awareness allows individuals to start understanding how and why
they react to specific external stimuli. Only once individuals recognise and
acknowledge their emotions, will they be in a position to control how they react to
these emotions. Understanding oneâs emotions is only the starting point in learning
how to control your emotions but without this first step, no meaningful change will be
possible.
Emotional self-management is more of a process than a change in oneâs personality.
It is the ability to accept oneâs shortcomings and manage the observable external
responses to stimuli for the benefit of self and others. self-management is essentially
a skill and as such, must be learned and practiced before it can be perfected
Social awareness and managing relationships are possibly the more difficult
emotional domains to master from a driver perspective, as it may be considered
strange to think of social reactions with other road users as oneâs own responsibility.
The social domains however, do have serious implications as to how these incidental
relationships ultimately affect the behaviour of road users. It is clearly documented
that road rage is common place in our driving culture. Analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data clearly indicates that emotional
inelegance has a significant impact on driver behaviour. The participants in this study
sited driver related emotional behaviour to include characteristics associated with
road rage and general emotional incompetence. The quantitative data was less
significant in determining the impact of emotional intelligence (EI) and driver
behaviour in regard to age, gender and race; the fact remains however that the data
identified a significant relationship between persons with a low EI and vehicle
incidents. The analysis of the quantitative data relating to group, age, gender and
race, when viewed against the same participantâs qualitative response, as well as the
theoretical arguments presented in this study, would suggest that the qualitative data
may be influenced by response bias. The degree to which response bias may have
contaminated the quantitative data will need to be established through further
research.
The recommendations in this study should be addressed in order to test the theories
discussed in the study with the view of authenticating how customised education and
training can positively impact on driver behaviour and how such education and
training should be structured.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-05272013-115349 |
| Date | 27 May 2013 |
| Creators | du Preez, Johannes GA |
| Contributors | Prof SM Niemann |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-05272013-115349/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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