Narcissists and Aggressive Driving

With apologies to the Beatitudes:

Blessed are the meek

For They Shall Inherit Insurance Discounts

Meekness may not be the precise opposite of narcissism, but it's what I thought of when reading a 2002 study by George Schreer, a professor of psychology at Manhattanville College, entitled "Narcissism and Aggression: Is Inflated Self-Esteem Related to Aggressive Driving?" He surveyed a small sample of college students on the dimensions of self-esteem and narcissism, as well as tendencies toward aggressive driving behaviors. There is a slight correlation between higher self-esteem and aggressive driving, on the theory of "threatened egotism". Road incidents are a personal affront, a challenge to my self-identity and self-worth, and must be responded to. Or so the narcissist feels.

Schreer uses the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) and its seven components. The full-scale was not a great predictor, but some of the individual components were. For females (interestingly, there was no significant difference between the sample's males and females on aggressive driving), the best predictor was Exhibitionism. Perhaps these female drivers use horn-honks and finger-salutes as a way of demanding attention in the sea of traffic anonymity. Not in any "look at me" sense, but more of a "hey, pay attention! I'm not invisible over here!" Just a conjecture.

For males, the best predictor was the NPI component of Entitlement. Think of this as the Respect metric. As Professor Schreer puts it, "for male aggressive drivers, however, the act of driving may evoke a strong sense of power and privilege, and when that power is challenged, they react with hostility and aggression."

So what does this all mean for car insurance pricing? Perhaps nothing. One of the hardest aspects of validating a predictive rating variable is finding some feasible way to collect the data in a non-disruptive fashion. Not only in terms of low-cost (more so in time costs than money) to the customer, but also in a Schrodinger's Cat sense. Meaning, that if we attempt to test on these dimensions in the context of potential insurance rates, we change the outcomes of the measurements. Or, even more simply, drivers will change their answers from the truth to whatever they believe will keep their rates low. So, one must find independent sources of these measurements, and market accordingly.

P.S. I scored a 10 on the NPI. "I'm an excellent driver."