CHAPTER
4
Measures of Anger and Hostility in Adults
Ephrem Fernandez1, Andrew Day2and Gregory J. Boyle3
1University of Texas, San Antonio, TX, USA;2Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria, Australia;3University of
Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Anger lags behind anxiety and depression in terms of volume of published research. Yet, anger is widely
observed to be a problem in everyday life, its manifestation extending from the family to the workplace, and clin-
ical settings. This has spurred many scholars to develop tools for the assessment of anger. By far, most of these
tools take the form of self-report questionnaires. Some of these have been in use for more than half a century
while there are also signs of a proliferation of new instruments that coincide with the increased interest in anger
as a feature of everyday life and a target of self-regulation and intervention.
Before delving into the individual measures, a phenomenological sketch of anger and related phenomena
would be appropriate. First of all, anger has been defined in many ways with different aspects being emphasized.
However, there is general consensus that it is a feeling tied to appraised wrongdoing and coupled with action
tendencies to counter or redress the wrongdoing ( Smedslund, 1993; Wranik & Scherer, 2010 ). More broadly,
anger has been characterized in terms of patterns of psycho-physiological and facial activation. Although anger
may be deemed to have some beneficial effects, as in its role of mobilizing psychological resources, energizing
behavior, and protecting self-esteem ( Taylor & Novaco, 2005 ), it is typically regarded as a negatively valenced
emotion with potentially harmful consequences ( Fernandez, 2013 ). As Howells (2004) has suggested, ‘the argu-
ment that angry emotions, when poorly regulated, understood and expressed, make a major contribution to
human distress is a compelling one’ (p. 195).
Though sometimes used interchangeably with anger, the term hostility is more specifically reserved for fre-
quently recurring anger or anger proneness (Ramirez & Andreu, 2006); hostility is quite likely rooted in an attitu-
dinal bias or a cognitive schema of strong disapproval toward others ( Brodsky, 2011 ). By virtue of this
dispositional quality, it is akin to trait anger ( Smith, 1994 ). Aggression, which is outside the scope of this review
is defined in social psychology as behavior that is intended to harm, hurt, or damage /C0physically or psychologi-
cally (for a review of measures of aggression, please refer to Suris et al., 2004 ). Finally, violence is a subtype of
physical aggression in which the intended harm/hurt/damage actually materializes.
MEASURES REVIEWED HERE
All of the scales/measures presented in this chapter have anger as at least one of the focal constructs being
measured. In order to provide up-to-date psychometric reviews, the emphasis in this chapter is on research pub-
lished subsequent to the appearance of the first edition of this book (Robinson, Shaver, & Wrightsman, 1991).
Attention is also given to some recently constructed measures that, notwithstanding a smaller literature base, rep-
resent points of innovation in this evolving field of anger assessment (cf. Biaggio & Maiuro, 1985 ). These mea-
sures are presented in a more abbreviated format because of limited information concerning certain psychometric
criteria.
74Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Constructs.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-386915-9.00004-8 ©2015 Elsevier Inc. and Ephrem Fernandez. All rights reserved.