One clue lies in a sweeping annual survey commissioned by the American Psychological Association to explore what the authors call “the psychological impacts of a collective trauma” from the pandemic, “global conflicts, racism and racial injustice, inflation and climate-related disasters.” According to the report, titled “Stress in America,” just 34 percent of American adults have confidence in the direction the country is going, while a third of respondents said they had too much anxiety in their lives to think about the future at all. Nearly a half wished they had someone — anyone — who could help them manage a daily barrage of stressors.
“All those emotions, they have to go somewhere,” says Ryan Martin, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin and a specialist in the science of anger. More often than not, Martin contends, we find that outlet in a car. “If I was to set out to create a situation that would make the most people act badly and angrily, I couldn’t come up with anything better than driving,” he says. “Every element that provokes an anger response is there. There’s your mood when you entered the car in a rush. There’s provocation — something that happens to you, like being cut off. And relatedly, there’s how you interpret the provocation based on your mood.”