Social norms and circumstantial power: analysis of driver-pedestrian interaction at unregulated pedestrian crossings

Abstract

In the Chilean social context, inequality is often addressed in an abstract manner. However, this phenomenon also manifests itself in everyday situations, such as crossing a pedestrian crosswalk. The present research focuses on analyzing the behavior of drivers in terms of their willingness to yield to pedestrians. Through descriptive statistical analysis and logistic regression models, results were obtained that allow us to examine how people in positions of circumstantial power make use of this in everyday situations. The results suggest that drivers tend to not yield at pedestrian crossings regardless of the characteristics of the pedestrians. In addition, it was observed that drivers of American brand vehicles significantly tended not to respect the right of way. This suggests that those who hold circumstantial power tend to exercise it even at the cost of transgressing prescriptive norms (right of way). In this way, this research points to how circumstances of power asymmetry can tend to favor phenomena such as interactional inequalities and interpersonal distrust, underlining the importance of addressing the discrepancies between what should happen and what tends to happen by reflecting on the impact of such discrepancies in broader social processes.