Mindfulness predicts less texting while driving among young adults: Examining attention- and emotion-regulation motives as potential mediators.

Many young adult drivers read and send text messages while driving despite clear safety risks. Understanding predictors of texting-while-driving may help to indentify relevant targets for interventions to reduce this dangerous behavior. The present study examined whether individual differences in mindfulness is associated with texting-while-driving in a sample of young-adult drivers. Using path analysis, we tested whether this relationship would be mediated by the degree to which individuals use text-messaging as a means of reducing unpleasant emotions (emotion-regulation motives) and the degree to which individuals limit texting in order to focus on present-moment experiences (attention-regulation motives). Individuals lower in mindfulness reported more frequent texting-while-driving and this relationship appeared to be mediated primarily by emotion-regulation motives. Results may help inform the development of mindfulness-based interventions to prevent texting-while-driving

The Impact of First-Person Perspective Text and Images on Drivers’ Comprehension, Learning Judgments, Attitudes, and Intentions Related to Safe Road-Sharing Behaviors

Drivers and cyclists lack an alignment of road sharing knowledge, attitudes, and expectations, resulting in unnecessary fatalities. Educational countermeasures need to present information that captures drivers’ interest by being personally relevant, facilitate elaboration and synthesis of new information with existing knowledge, and change attitudes, intentions, and behavior. Well-documented health-related communication methods were employed to determine their effectiveness in a transportation domain. Health countermeasure designers use first-person perspective to improve narrative instruction outcomes, based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Exploring narrative perspective-taking as a design tool requires the integration of multiple disciplines. Our design case stems from the existing Virginia road-sharing safety educational handbook. The first study evaluated the effects of text-based information written from a first- and third-person perspective on cognitive and affective learning outcomes. The Theory of Planned Behavior framework (TPB; Ajzen, 1991) was used to interpret the following outcome measurements that are predictive of behavior: comprehension, judgments of learning, attitudes, and intentions. The second study employed the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML; Mayer, 1997) to understand the interactions between text and visual perspectives on cognitive and affective learning outcomes. In addition, cognitive load, multiple knowledge types, and three behavioral intention components were also considered when evaluating the efficacy of first-person perspective. It was found that the first-person perspective effect used in the health domain does not transfer to a transportation domain. The data were explored further and discussed, as well as key limitations and possible future directions

An Investigation of Patterns of Adolescent Driving Behaviors Resulting in Fatal Crashes and Their Implications on Policy

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate whether there is a statistical relationship between accident-related factors including use of drugs or alcohol, speeding, driver distractions, gender, driver drowsiness, practice of dysfunctional driving maneuvers, and use of occupant protection devices, and fatal vehicle crashes among young teen drivers. Secondary archival data from 84 North Carolina crashes occurring between 2009 and 2013 and involving young teen drivers between the ages of 15 and 18 years were obtained from North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles Form 349 crash reports. These data were analyzed using chi-square tests for goodness-of-fit, chi-square tests for independence, and z-tests for proportions. The study found statistically significant associations between gender (p \u3c.019), speeding (p \u3c .001), practice of dysfunctional driving maneuvers (p \u3c .001), and non-use of occupant protection devices (p \u3c .001) and teen crash fatalities. The implications of this study for positive social change include recommendations to the State of North Carolina to enact legislative action related to driver education for new drivers, with the anticipated result of reducing traffic fatalities when a teenage driver is involved in an accident. In order to counteract deadly dysfunctional driving maneuvers on the part of young teen drivers, it was recommended that State driver education curricula be expanded to include exposure to more real world, on-the-road supervised driving experience conducted under more varied conditions and that high school driver education facilities be upgraded to include skid pads for student driving practice. Further research relating to the supervised implementation and verification of the requirement of the 50 hours of adult-supervised driving experience for Graduated Driver Licensure was also recommended

Alaska Young Driver Safety: Distracted Driving, Seat Belt Use and Drinking and Driving

Presented to the Faculty of the University of Alaska Anchorage in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF PUBLIC HEALTHUnited States teenagers have the highest crash rate of any group in the nation. The data tell us that there are eight identified leading causes of teen injuries and deaths associated with vehicle collisions: Driver inexperience; driving with teen passengers; nighttime driving; not using seat belts; distracted driving; drowsy driving; reckless driving; and impaired driving (CDC, 2014). Alaska data tell a similar story. The leading causes of crashes for Alaskan teen drivers are: driver inattention, unsafe speed, failure to yield and driver inexperience (Alaska Injury Prevention Center, 2012). In partnership with the Alaska Injury Prevention Center, this practicum project created a resource guide identifying best practices in teen driving interventions connected to three of these areas: distracted driving, seat belt use and drinking and driving. The Strategies to Support Safe Teen Driving in Alaska resource guide is intended as a tool for community partners to access information about interventions for distracted driving, seat belt use and drinking and driving for Alaska teens and to work to put those interventions into action in their local communities. Project research efforts included a synthesis review of available intervention reports, including a multi-step filtering process that distilled available program literature down to a final collection of strategies based on best available evidence. These resulting strategies were categorized into a taxonomy identifying currently available approaches, and were also classified into levels of promise associated with certainty of effectiveness and potential population impact. Upon evaluation of intervention types within a Promise Table structure, the strategies found to be most promising were all public policy efforts surrounding graduated drivers’ licensing programs, a minimum legal drinking age at 21, cell phone restrictions while driving and seat belt requirements. In addition, the community role of creating partnerships to prevent unsafe teen driving behaviors, as well as the parental role of boundary setting and monitoring their teen’s driving behavior, were found to have equal levels of promise. Of most significance was the finding identifying the importance of executing teen driving strategies with diverse influences, including all levels of the Social Ecological Model’s influence (i.e. public policy, community, organizational, interpersonal and intrapersonal). Additional priority areas included attention to matters of community culture, public policy, enforcement and parental influence. Resulting recommendations include multiple public policy enhancements in the state of Alaska, including graduated driver’s license program modifications, enhancement of the state’s zero-tolerance policy and broad scale restrictions of driver cell-phone use.Signature Page / Title Page / Abstract / Table of Contents / List of Figures / List of Tables / List of Appendices / Introduction / Background and Significance / Project Goal and Objectives / Methods / Results / Discussion, Strengths and Limitations / Conclusions and Recommendations / References / Appendice

Tobacco use and cessation: What matters to Southeast Alaska Native young adults?

Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2013Background: The smoking rate among young Alaska Native adults (ages 19-29) in Southeast Alaska is 70% as compared to the statewide adult smoking rate of 21%, the Alaska Native adult rate of 41%, and the overall young adult rate of 32%. Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC), the non-profit tribal health consortium serving Southeast Alaska, commissioned this research to inform development of a young adult-specific, social marketing-based smoking cessation intervention. Methods: Using purposive sampling, 23 individuals were recruited for five focus groups and four individual interviews in Juneau, Alaska. Following a social marketing framework, the research assessed participant beliefs about the benefits and negative impacts of smoking, barriers to quitting, and preferred quit support methods, as well as participant reactions to particular anti-smoking advertisements and quit support methods. Results: Almost all participants reported an interest in quitting smoking. Stress relief, boredom relief, relaxation, and oral satisfaction were the main benefits of smoking. Downsides to smoking included negative short-term health impacts, negative impacts on children in the extended family, and negative cosmetic impacts. Barriers to quitting included loss of listed benefits, addiction and habit, fatalism, and the high prevalence of smoking among family and friends. The preferred method of quitting was cold turkey (unassisted quitting), with very few participants reporting use of counseling or pharmacotherapy. Participants preferred high emotional level anti-smoking advertisements with either strongly negative emotional valence (e.g., fear and disgust) or strongly positive emotional valence (e.g., joy, happiness). Reaction to quit support methods was most favorable to texting support and a smart phone app, and most negative toward a smart phone video game. Reaction to counseling was strongly supportive among those who had tried it and largely but not totally negative among those who had not. Conclusion: Young Alaska Native adults in Juneau who smoke are interested in quitting but prefer cold turkey to counseling and pharmacotherapy. They are more concerned about short-term than long-term health impacts, and they are sensitive to the impact of smoking on their appearance and on children in their extended family. Findings formed a foundation for a proposed social-marketing based intervention

Black Teen\u27s Experiences of Victimization In Dating Relationships: Assessment of Risk and Protective Factors and Outcomes

Approximately 10% of male and 21% of female high school students report having experienced physical and/or sexual victimization in a dating relationship (Vagi et al., 2015). Multiple sources report that Black/African American teens have the highest rates of teen dating violence (TDV) victimization (CDC, 2017; Eaton et al., 2012). Data for this study comes from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey (YRBSS) collected from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in 2015, 2017, and 2019. A limited but growing field of research examines the effects of risk behaviors on TDV among teens. Among Black teens, the present study uses path analysis to (1) analyze the risk factors (e.g., early initiation of risky behaviors, violent behaviors, risky sexual behaviors, substance use, and risky driving behaviors) of TDV victimization (2) determine if a positive school environment can help to prevent TDV victimization and (3) determine the mental health outcomes of TDV victimization. Findings indicated that all early and current risk behaviors included in the study were associated with TDV, and the early risk behaviors mediated the relationship between TDV and mental health outcomes. At the same time, a positive school environment did not serve as a protective factor. Findings provide insights into the complex relationship between early and current risk behaviors, mental health outcomes, and TDV victimization – to better understand the opportunities for the development of prevention and intervention programs geared around early and current risk behaviors, mental health, and TDV victimization specific to Black teens

Smartphone Use and Mindfulness: Empirical Tests of a Hypothesized Connection

The current study is the first test of a newly developed conceptual model of the effect of smartphone use on mindfulness. Previous research has shown the capacity for mindfulness is strongly associated with increased psychological well-being (e.g. higher self-esteem and lower perceived stress, anxiety, and psychological distress). We argue that smartphones can be used in an automatic and mindless or experientially avoidant way, and that this use can lead to a decreased capacity for mindfulness, with adolescents being most vulnerable to this potential impact. Components of mindfulness, such as the capacity for sustained attention and the areas of the brain implicated in attentional control (e.g., the prefrontal cortex) show significant growth through young adulthood. This developing, malleable capacity is vital as adolescents learn to deal appropriately with negative thoughts and unwelcome emotions. Using self-report augmented with objective measures in a planned missingness design, the current study tested the relation of highly involved smartphone use with mindfulness. Among a sample of university students aged 18-20 (N=668), we found smartphone involvement to be significantly associated with lower trait mindfulness (b = -0.83, bootstrapped 95% CI [-1.97, -0.51], z = 4.86, p \u3c .001). Additionally, exploratory analysis of smartphone involvement as a mediator of the effect of smartphone use on mindfulness found a significant estimated indirect effect of - 0.25 (bootstrapped 95% CI: [-0.70, -0.05]). These results provide the first layer of empirical support for an association between use of smartphones in a cognitively and behaviorally involved way and mindfulness

Supporting teen leaders: Validation of the I Drive Smart Survey

Recent policy change allows states to spend federal dollars directly on teen-led driver safety efforts and requires regular evaluations of effectiveness. There are currently no standardized instruments to measure change in teen driving behavior relevant to teen leaders. This study serves the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, Tennessee Highway Safety Office and their network of teen leaders to empirically test and refine the I Drive Smart survey developed by partners and grounded in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The survey is designed to be administered by teen leaders to their peers and produce data relevant for use in improving planning as well as tracking changes occurring from their work. The survey measures attitudes, perceptions of social norms (peer, family, and law enforcement), perceptions of behavior control, and both driving and passenger behavior intentions. The I Drive Smart web survey was administered by a group of teen leaders to 175 of their peers. Findings were used to inform local planning and in this quasi-confirmatory study aimed at optimizing the survey. An exploratory factor analysis revealed a four factor model aligned with TPB that explained 61.618% of variation. Item reliability analysis demonstrated high internal consistency for the behavior intention scale with a Cronbach’s alpha of .884. An ordinary least squares regression test found the predictive validity of the identified components to be strong, explaining 64.5% of variation in the model and identifying perceptions of behavior control as the best predictor of behavior intentions, followed by family and peer norms. The behavior control component retained so much variation that the optimized survey assesses both volitional and non-volitional control concepts. Further, teen leaders were able to successfully administer the survey and found data helpful in supporting their planning. This study demonstrates that teen leaders are capable of directing evaluation activities and that the refined version of the I Drive Smart survey has appropriate psychometric properties for teen leaders in highway safety to use. Standard procedures for using the survey are discussed along with recommendations for analysis that includes triangulation with other local data points

Exercising the “Right to Repair”: A Customer’s Perspective

Concerns over the carbon footprint resulting from the manufacturing, usage and disposal of hardware have been growing. The Right to Repair legislation was introduced to promote sustainable utilisation of hardware by encouraging stakeholders to prolong the lifetime of products, such as electronic devices. As there is little empirical evidence from a consumer perspective on exercising the right to repair, this study aims firstly to examine the factors that underpin consumers’ intention to repair their hardware, and secondly to investigate the perceived outcomes of repair practices. Based on 510 responses, the results showed that intention to repair is dependent on three groups of factors, namely, the facilitators of pro-environmental behaviour, repair-related factors and beliefs about legislation. If consumers have a stronger intention to repair, they have a stronger feeling of emotional self-assurance, satisfaction with the repair decision and the technology manufacturer, an intention to engage with the manufacturer and a positive perception of a repaired device’s performance. The findings contribute to the literature on sustainable behaviour and the right to repair, offering insight for policymakers and manufacturers about the strategies facilitating the wider adoption of repair practices