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I don't know about you but I've caught myself a number of times thinking, while sitting in a traffic jam, about how everyone else "doesn't really need to be there"; that they're mostly all housewives who could have run their errands any time of day and happen to be out on the road at rush hour because they're stupid procrastinators, while all I want is to just get home from work. After a moment's logical thought, it's pretty clear that most people around me are also just trying to get home from work.

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Part of it is not being able to put a face on most of the other drivers, giving me a blank slate to project all kinds of prejudices on them. In one study where researchers stopped a car too long at a green light, the test subject behind the car was more likely to honk if they couldn't see the driver -- probably imagining all kinds of awful things about the monster inside.

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Skull recreated from drivers' descriptions of the unseen driver blocking them in traffic.

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In addition to hiding the driver, they also tried another round where they placed a rifle in the back window, a good prop to help an already angry driver build up the imaginary character of the asshole gun nut unseen in the car ahead. This, not surprisingly, caused more honking.



