Personal and Social Factors Related to Readiness to Take Risks While Driving Among Adolescents: Comparing Majority and Minority Groups in Israel

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 risktaking tendencies among young people, especially those from minority
groups.