Anger, Hostility and Aggression Assessment

Introduction

Over the last 25 years, interest in measuring the experience, expression, and control of anger has been stimulated by evidence that anger, hostility and aggression were associated with hypertension and cardiovascular disease (Williams, Barefoot & Shekelle, 1985; Dembroski, MacDougall, Williams & Haney, 1984). While definitions of anger-related constructs are often inconsistent and ambiguous, the experience and expression of anger are typically encompassed in definitions of hostility and aggression. Clearly, anger is the most fundamental of these overlapping constructs.

On the basis of a careful review of the research literature on anger, hostility and aggression, the following definitions of these constructs were proposed by Spielberger et al. (1983: 16):

Anger usually refers to an emotional state that consists of feelings that vary in intensity, from mild irritation or annoyance to intense fury and rage. Although hostility involves angry feelings, this concept has the connotation of a complex set of attitudes that motivate aggressive behaviours directed toward destroying objects or injuring other people. The concept of aggression generally implies destructive or punitive behaviour directed towards other persons or objects.

The physiological and behavioural manifestations of anger, hostility and aggression have been investigated in numerous studies, but until recently angry feelings have been largely ignored in psychological research. Consequently, psychometric measures of anger, hostility and aggression generally do not distinguish between feeling angry, and the expression of anger and hostility in aggressive behaviour. Most measures of anger-related constructs also fail to take the state-trait distinction into account, and confound the experience and expression of anger with situational determinants of angry behaviour. A coherent theoretical framework that recognizes the difference between anger, hostility and aggression as psychological constructs, and that distinguishes between anger as an emotional state and individual differences in the experience, expression and control of anger as personality traits, is essential for guiding the construction and cross-cultural adaptation of anger measures.

Assessment of Anger: Measuring State-Trait and the Expression and Control of Anger

The State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI) was developed to measure the experience, expression and control of anger (Spielberger et al., 1985; Spielberger, Krasner & Solomon, 1988). The State-Trait Anger Scale (STAS) was constructed to assess the intensity of anger as an emotional state, and individual differences in anger proneness as a personality trait (Spielberger et al., 1983). State anger was defined as ‘… an emotional state marked by subjective feelings that vary in intensity from mild annoyance or irritation to intense fury or rage, which is generally accompanied by muscular tension and arousal of the autonomic nervous system’. Trait Anger refers to individual differences in the disposition to experience angry feelings. The STAS Trait-Anger Scale evaluates how frequently State Anger is experienced.

Recognition of the importance of distinguishing between the experience and expression of anger stimulated the development of the Anger Expression (AX) Scale (Spielberger et al., 1985). The AX Scale assesses how often anger is suppressed (anger-in) or expressed in aggressive behaviour (anger-out). The instructions for responding to the AX Scale differ markedly from the traditional trait-anger instructions. Rather than directing subjects to respond according to how they generally feel, they are instructed to report on how often they react or behave in a particular manner when they feel ‘angry or furious’ (e.g. ‘I say nasty things’; ‘I boil inside, but don't show it’) by rating themselves on the same 4-point frequency scale that is used with the Trait-Anger Scale.

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