Mothers Against Drunk Driving

Initial formation of the organization Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (afterward Mothers Against Drunk Driving), or MADD, occurred in a context of the bereavement and loss experienced by two mothers, one in California and one in Florida, Candy Lightner and Cindi Lamb, respectively. Lightner's daughter had been killed by a drunk driver in 1980, and Lamb was in a 1979 car accident in which a drunk driver's actions left her infant daughter a lifelong quadriplegic. The organization began with lobbying efforts at the state-legislature level, calling upon lawmakers to target "drunks behind the wheel," lax enforcement of liquor laws affecting minors, and dispensers of liquor to persons obviously intoxicated who become involved in alcohol-related accidents and injuries (Sellinger, 1984, p. 102; Lightner, 1985). MADD appears to have been effective and at least partially responsible for changes in liquor laws and related law-enforcement practices in various states, such as mandating a legal drinking age of 21 and enactment of dram-shop-liability laws, enabling prosecution of liquor sellers whose alcohol-influenced customers become culpable in related personal-injury or criminal activity (Sloan, et al., 2000).

Controversy caught up with MADD some five years after its inception and in the early phase of its growing national profile. From the standpoint of civil liberties, critics argued that MADD advocacy and the enforcement and judicial practices that could be linked to it unfairly targe

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due to its personal aspect. Viewers could identify with the people in the human drama. Thus the theory of emotional appeal takes analysis of MADD's campaigns partway toward a full appreciation of their effectiveness--but only so far. Where the charismatic leader is subsumed by the organization that develops an independent momentum is where the limits of emotional appeal may be sighted. That does not mean that MADD would abandon the techniques of emotional appeal; far from it. But a full analysis of MADD's campaigns requires careful attention to where in the scheme of its activities emotional appeal properly fits. It is the contention of this research that emotional appeal, which may have been the raison d'Otre of the initial organizational structure as well as the basis for its early success in achieving a high public profile, has gradually assumed an instrumental status in the larger project of employment of the techniques and elements of self-efficacy theory. Self-efficacy theory originated with the work of Albert Bandura. As the term implies, self-efficacy has a behavioral orientation. It has to do with the individual's level perception that he or she can be the agent of personal experience, emotion, motivation, and behavior.

Category: Psychology - M