Personal and Social Factors Related to Readiness to Take Risks While Driving Among Adolescents

Comparing Majority and Minority Groups in Israel

תקציר

Data among adolescents around the world reveals higher tendency among adolescents from minority groups to engage in risk taking behavior while driving than among majority groups (Hilton, 2006). We examined the relationships between several individual and collective coping resources which can explain behavioral intentions towards driving and readiness to take risks while driving among Jewish and Arab teenagers in Israel. The resources examined were two general salutogenic resources of personal and national sense of coherence. The study was conducted in 12 schools in northern Israel, 442 Arab (201 males) and 356 Jewish (199 males) students participated. As expected, the tendency to take risks while driving and the perception of driving as a challenge were lower among the Jewish (majority) than among the Arab (minority) teenagers. Correlations were found between some coping resources (sense of coherence and sense of national coherence) and readiness to take risks while driving. The findings suggest that sense of coherence at the personal and national level may serve as an important factor associated with behavioral intentions and risk taking tendencies among young people, especially those from minority groups.