1.The Effects of Direct and Indirect Communication on Risky Teenage Driving Behavior

2. The Problem In the United States, car accidents are the main causeof fatality among young adults ages fifteen to twenty years old (Compton & Ellison-Potter, 2008) The largest at risk group for distracted driving are individuals under the age of twenty. new drivers (ages 16-17) are more frequently involved inthe behavior of texting and driving they also have a harder time handling distractions (Lee, 2007). In 2009, over one third of teenagers (ages16-17) whoregularly text, admit to texting and driving simultaneously (Pew Internet Survey, 2009) 3. Research Question: How can we get new drivers to stop texting and driving? 4. The Purpose of This Study Investigate the relationships betweenparent-child communication and indirect persuasion on reducing teens texting and driving behaviors 5. Literature Review Parent-Child Communication Indirect Persuasion 6. Parent-Child Communication Parents who watched PSAs were more likely to talk totheir children about the issues addressed in the message (Evans et al., 2012) Discussions between parents and children have been foundto be related to a shared belief about a risk Targeted conversations about the risks of alcohol use wasfound to be significantly related to both recent alcohol use and positive expectancies of alcohol use (Miller-Day & Kam, 2010) Overall, parent involvement has a positive influence on the decision-making of adolescents on risk-taking behavior (Hartos, Eitel, & Simon-Morton, 2002; Beck, Shattuck, & Raleigh, 2001) 7. Indirect Persuasion Parents who used implicit language to prevent teens fromusing drug are more successful than those who used explicit language (Alvaro et al., 2008) Teens who were targeted by indirect messages were morelikely to evaluate the message more positively (Crano et al., 2007) Message targeting also correlated with self-report behavioralintentions Persuasion from parents, regardless of language types,are perceived more positively than that from peers (Alvaro et al., 2008) Connection to parent-child communication 8. The Present Investigation 1.) Administer field survey to get at characteristics ofparent-child communication 2.) Replicates Cranos (2007) procedure in the context of teenage texting and driving behaviors using inhalants and texting and driving are bothdangerous, risky behaviors teens are the risk group in both contexts 9. The Field Study Goal: investigate the relationship between direct verbalcommunication in a texting and driving context Constructs Frequency and content of conversations; perception of and recentengagement in texting and driving Participants Procedure Hypotheses: 1.) Teens who receive direct anti-texting messages from their parentswill perceive texting while driving as more of a risk as compared to those who do not receive direct anti-texting messages from their parents 2.) Teens who receive direct anti-texting messages from their parents will report less texting while driving behaviors as compared to those who do not receive direct anti-texting messages from their parents 10. The Laboratory Study Design: 2 x 3 factorial Between subjects Variables IV: user status and target DV: message evaluation and behavioral intention Participants Procedure Hypotheses: 1.) Indirect messages will have a more positive effect on both outcomemeasures than direct messages. (1a) Operators and vulnerable operators will evaluate the indirect message morepositively and will report lower scores of behavioral intention to text and drive in the future as compared to those respective participants who will witness the direct message. 2.) Non-operators will show no bias in evaluation between the directand indirect messages. (2a) The message type will not affect their reported behavioral intention. 11. Conclusion PSAs targeted towards parents will promote parent child communication which will reduce risky driving behavior Simultaneously, teens who overhear these messages will be indirectly persuaded to reduce the risky behavior and evaluate the message positively Therefore, texting campaigns should be solely targeted towards parents. 12. References Alvaro, E., Crano, W., Siegel, J., Grandpre, J., & Miller, C. (2008, May). Talking about drug prevention ads: Adolescent responses to interpersonal discussion about drug prevention media campaign messages. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Montreal, QC. Beck, K. H., Shattuck, T., & Raleigh, R. (2001). Parental predictors of teen driving risk. American Journal of Health Behavior,25, 10-20. doi:10.5993/AJHB.25.1.2 Compton, R. & Ellison-Potter, P. (2008). Teen driver crashes: A report to congress. (Report No. DOT HS 811 005). Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Retrieved from www.nhtsa.gov Crano, W. D., Siegel, J. T., Alvaro, E. M., & Patel, N. M. (2007). Overcoming adolescents resistance to anti-inhalant appeals. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 21, 516-524. doi:10.1037/0893-164X.21.4.516 Evans, W. D., Davis, K. C., Ashley, O. S., & Khan, M. (2012). Effects of media messages on parent-child sexual communication. Journal of Health Communication, 17, 498-514. doi:10.1080/10810730.2011.635772 Hartos, J., Eitel, P., & Simons-Morton, B. (2002). Parenting practices and adolescent risky driving: A three-month prospective study. Health Education & Behavior, 29, 194-206. doi:10.1177/109019810202900205 Lee, J. D. (2007). Technology and teen drivers. Journal of Safety Research, 38, 203-213. doi:10.1016/j.jsr.2007.02.008 Madden, M. Lenhart, A.,Teens and Distracted Driving, Pew Internet & American Life Project, November 16, 2009, http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/Teens-and-Distracted-Driving.aspx, October 08, 2013. 1-16. Miller-Day, M., & Kam, J. A. (2010). More than just openness: Developing and validating a measure of targeted parent-child communication about alcohol. Health Communication, 25, 293-302. doi:10.1080/10410231003698952