Personality structure of elderly drivers

This paper reports the factor structure of a 37-item personality questionnaire intended to be predictive of driving performance in elderly persons. Subjects were 191 persons 63 years of age or older, about half of whom also were given perceptual/cognitive tasks and drove on a closed driving course. Although the personality questionnaire did not predict driving skill, the factor structure of the questionnaire is of interest. Of several factor analyses, the most satisfactory was a 2-factor solution. We interpreted the approximately orthogonal factors as measuring what we labeled Competence and Emotionality.