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Novaco Anger Scale

The Novaco Anger Scale (NAS) is a self-report questionnaire with Cognitive, Arousal, and Behavioral subscales that constitute a 48-item NAS Total score. It has a separate 12-item Anger Regulation subscale. This questionnaire is designed to index a person's disposition for anger, which is a risk factor for violence and a dynamic variable amenable to treatment. The NAS was developed in conjunction with the violence risk project of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Mental Health and Law. It was later revised, along with its companion scale, the 25-item Provocation Inventory (PI), in conjunction with its publication by Western Psychological Services (WPS). The NAS subscales pertain to anger disposition domains, as linked to an environmental context. The PI assesses self-reported anger intensity in response to provoking situations. Both instruments were developed and validated for use with mentally disordered and normal populations.

Description and Development

The NAS was first constructed in 1990 as a two-part instrument, which entailed the PI as “NAS Part B.” In its formal publication in 2003, the NAS and PI were designated as separate instruments, and the Anger Regulation subscale was added. In the 2003 revision, a subset of four “attentional focus” items within the NAS Cognitive subscale was replaced by a subset of 4 items concerning “justification.” Some item-wording changes were also made across the instrument.

Scale norms, reliability, and validity were first established for clinical populations in studies with 300 male and female patients, both civil commitment and forensic, at three California State hospitals; 119 male forensic patients in Scotland; 129 male intellectual disability forensic patients in England; and 143 Vietnam combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The WPS standardization sample of 1,546 participants was age stratified (9–84 years) and was obtained from various nonclinical settings across the United States; also added were 171 male offenders in various correctional settings.

Scale Components

NAS Cognitive

The arousal of anger is cognitively mediated, being a function of perception and information processing. A schematic network of memories and meanings centrally influence the experience of anger and its expression. The NAS Cognitive subscale is composed of items operationalizing justification, rumination, hostile attitude, and suspicion.

NAS Arousal

Anger arousal is marked by physiological activation in the cardiovascular, endocrine, and limbic systems and by tension in the skeletal musculature. Transfer of arousal or excitation residues from a prior provocation can intensify anger to a new one. The NAS Arousal subscale items operationalize intensity, duration, somatic tension, and irritability.

NAS Behavioral

Implicit in the cognitive labeling of anger is an inclination to act in an antagonistic or confrontative manner. The NAS Behavioral subscale items operationalize impulsive reaction, verbal aggression, physical confrontation, and indirect expression. The NAS Behavioral score is the principal NAS index expected to be associated with violence.

NAS Total

This is a summary anger disposition index, created by adding the Cognitive, Arousal, and Behavioral sub-scales. It does not include the NAS Anger Regulation subscale.

NAS Anger Regulation

A central characteristic of problematic anger is loss of regulatory control, which of course hinges on the environmental context in which the anger has been activated. This subscale is composed of cognitive, arousal, and behavior items. It is an overall index of the person's report of his or her ability to regulate anger-engendering thoughts and thinking styles, effect self-calming, and engage in constructive behavior when faced with provocation.

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