Bus passengers’ anger scale and expression in anger-provoking situations

Abstract

Abstract This paper investigates the scale and expression of passengers’ anger arising from disputes between drivers and passengers, and between passengers, by surveying a sample of 757 undergraduate students. The bus passengers’ anger scale and expression inventory (BPASX), a newly-designed questionnaire battery, is used to analyse the anger levels and resulting behaviour expression of passengers in 6-item anger-provoking situations. The analysis shows that a positive correlation exists between the frequency or duration of bus rides and anger levels/external anger expression, while self-adaptive expression is only correlated with frequency. Gender differs only in the violent external expression, where males display a greater preference. Meanwhile, the correlations of anger levels between anger-provoking situations are significantly positive. Moreover, anger expression patterns gradually shift from self-adaptation to external expression as anger levels grow in general, but the variation rules of expression frequency are different. Overall, this study provides a newly effective tool to explore characteristics of the anger expression of bus passengers in different anger-provoking scenarios and demonstrates its variation features when anger levels change.