SPAT: Situational Prosocial and Aggressive Behavior Perception in Traffic Scale
Automated vehicles (AVs) reached technological maturity and will soon arrive on streets as traffic participants. Human traffic participants such as drivers, pedestrians, or cyclists will be increasingly confronted with the presence of AVs within their environment, not necessarily knowing or understanding what to expect and how to interact with them. Although AVs are designed to act safely, effective interaction in mixed traffic scenarios will depend on successful communication, interaction, or even negotiation beyond static rules and regulations. Prosocial behavior, such as yielding one’s right of way, will be needed to resolve unclear traffic situations or foster traffic flow. However, what are the characteristics of such prosocial behavior, and how to measure this not only for automated vehicles but for all road users? Here, we describe a new scale to measure perceived social behavior in urban traffic scenarios. Through an online survey on N = 318 individuals and a validation study, we developed the Situational Prosocial and Aggressive Behavior in Traffic Scale and assessed it psychometrically.