Who is most susceptible to acting out road rage?
The short answer: people with high trait anger and intermittent explosive disorder (IED).
Both are strongly linked to trauma. Neither is merely a personal issue.
This episode explores why they fuel road rage, how structural and cultural conditions shape them, why therapy that focuses on cognition alone often falls short, and what the most potent solution actually looks like.
SOURCES
Road rage statistics — The Zebra (2026); Siegfried & Jensen (2025); SafeMotorist; NHTSA; Gun Violence Archive; Pew Research
Road rage definition and IED overlap — EBSCO Research Starters, Psychology and Aggression; Galovski et al. (2006)
Neuroscience of IED and trait anger — PMC11419216 (systematic review, 2024); Coccaro et al. (2007) fMRI study, Journal of Psychiatric Research; PMC7251158 (gray matter and insula, 2020); biorxiv connectome-wide trait anger study
Amygdala-PFC regulatory disconnect — PMC6732149; Neurolaunch, “Anger and Rage” (2025)
Deindividuation — Philip Zimbardo (1970); Slate, “The Psychology of Road Rage” (2015); Psychepedia (2025)
Displacement theory — Psychepedia; FasterCapital
Stress bucket model and secondary emotion — Psychology Today, “The Psychosocial Road to Road Rage” (2025)
Trait anger and injustice beliefs — ScienceDirect, systematic review on psychological correlates (2025)
CBT for road rage — PMC8114946, Regulating Road Rage; Psychepedia
CBT for trait anger — systematic review and meta-analysis, ResearchGate (2015); Recovery.com CBT techniques summary (2025); ScienceDirect cognitive-behavioral conceptualization of trait anger
CBT for IED — McCloskey et al. (2008); Liu et al., Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy (2025), PMC11740934
Fluoxetine/SSRI for IED — Coccaro, Lee & Kavoussi (2009), Journal of Clinical Psychiatry; Coccaro (1997), Archives of General Psychiatry
IED medication overview — AddictionHelp.com; LAOPCenter.com
ACT for anger — ResearchGate systematic review (2015)
Thich Nhat Hanh anger practice — Plum Village App; Anger: Buddhist Wisdom for Cooling the Flames (2001)
RAIN practice — Tara Brach; previous episode sources
Taoist pu — previous episode sources
IED cross-national prevalence — Psychological Medicine, WHO World Mental Health Survey (multiple countries)
IED 2025 meta-analysis — 29 studies, 17 countries, conflict-affected and Global South regions, refugee and clinical populations
South African Stress and Health (SASH) study — 2009; 9.5% 12‑month broad IED, later corrected estimates
