I did my undergrad work in Psychology. I read actual textbooks and listen to lectures by folks with PhD and PsyD after their names - the people who actually do the research in this stuff. As I said, there's science in this, not conjecture. That evidence-based training you always want - this is part of it.
There was a time in college I came face to face with a bear. I knew academically what to do. But I screamed like a 7 year old girl stumbled to the ground and ended up running away. In our words, in spite of knowing what I should do, I was completely out of my mind. I was on full auto pilot. I completely understand what it means to be e optionally hijacked. I don't remember anything of what happened between the screaming and the running, and being in my car, seriously... Listening to a cassette tape of Disney songs my wife had from her work at the Disney stores.
The morning after, I hope that makes sense. Typing on an iPad stinks. I apologize for the typos.
I'll see what I can dig up. I may have some notes on some of the sources I've run into. Mind you, my notes are usually a complete mess, so...
I don't think so. I think the technical term is that a person "loses their ****."
There's a "yes" and a "no" to this. The road rage reaction, itself, isn't chosen. However, we can make behavioral and attitudinal choices that make it highly unlikely. There's also a period of time (a few seconds, except in extreme situations) where we can actually recognize the precursors to the neurotransmitter dump (this is part of the "self-awareness" that's one quadrant of what's taught as "emotional intelligence"), and we can cut off the sequence by some fairly simple methods (deep breathing, thinking of something entirely different, going for a walk, doing push-ups). So, no, we don't actually choose to road rage, but we oddly can choose NOT to road rage.
