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 behavioral
tendencies, i.e., aggressiveness,
cognitive
biases, i.e., tendency to interpret situations in a suspicious and
 mistrustful
manner, and
emotional
or motivational characteristics, i.e., experience of frequent and intense
anger.
These
characteristics have traditionally been conceptualized as stable personality
traits
and
have been measured using interview or self-report techniques. They are
important for
health
because they have been shown to be associated with increased risk for early
mortality
and, especially, cardiovascular disease risk.
Dimensionality
A
large scale factor analysis conducted across multiple measures of hostility,
also
called
“trait anger”, has shown that a three factor solution involving components
of affect
(“anger
experience”), behavior (“anger expression”), and cognition (“cynicism”)
appears to
provide
the most accurate depiction of hostility (Martin, Watson, & Wan, 2000).
Oblique
as well as orthogonal solutions were shown to be similarly useful in this
study,
with
intercorrelations between the three sets of subscales ranging from .38
- .52 in the
oblique
models. Previous studies using multiple measures have derived similar factor
analytic
solutions (Barefoot, Beckham, Haney, Siegler, & Lipkus, 1993), although
some
analyses
of individual scales have supported a two-factor rather than a three factor
result
(Costa,
McCrae & Dembroski, 1989), perhaps as a function of variations in the
representation
of cognitive/cynicism items in the item pool.
Related Constructs
Hostility,
depression, and anxiety are overlapping constructs. Measures of hostility
have
been
shown to be moderately associated with anxiety and depression assessments,
and
all
three sets of measures have been shown, in turn, to be associated with
more general
measures
of neuroticism or negative affectivity (Costa & McCrae, 1992). The
degree of
overlap
appears to vary as a function of the relative emphasis on affect, behavior,
or
cognition
(Martin et al., 2000). Because such associations are retained across measures
and
across samples, however (e.g., not only are measures of hostility and depression
correlated
in population samples, but “anger attacks” are noted with greater frequency
in
samples
of depressed patients as well (Gould et al., 1996; Fava, Anderson, &
Rosenbaum,
1990)),
this appears to be a construct problem, not just a measurement problem.
Major Measurement
Methods
Five
major measurement methods were chosen for review here, based upon their
prevalence
and promise in the literatures in Health Psychology and Psychiatry.
Click
on the links below to learn more about the individual measurements.
1.
Cook-Medley
Hostility Scale
2.
Buss-Durkee
Hostility Inventory
3.
Buss
Perry Aggression Questionnaire
4.
Spielberger
Trait Anger and Anger Expression Scales
5.
Structured
Interview hostility measures
Hostility References
Barefoot
JC, Beckham JC, Haney TL, Siegler IC, Lipkus IM: Age differences in
hostility
among middle-aged and older adults. Psychol Aging 8: 3-9, 1993.
Costa
PT, McCrae RR: Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) and NEO
Five-Factor
Inventory (NEO-FFI): Professional Manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological
Assessment
Resources, 1992.
Costa
PT, McCrae RR, Dembroski TM: Agreeableness vs. antagonism:
Explication
of a potential risk factor for CHD. In: AW Siegman, TM Dembroski, eds.
In
Search of Coronary-Prone behavior: Beyond Type A. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum
Associates,
1989; 41-64.
Fava
M, Anderson K, Rosenbaum JF: "Anger attacks": Possible variants of panic
and
major depressive disorders. Am J Psychiatry 147: 867-870, 1990.
Gould
RA, Ball S, Kaspi SP, Otto MW, Pollack MH, Shekhar A, Fava M: Prevalence
and
correlates of anger attacks: A two site study. J Affect Disord 39:31-38,
1996.
Martin
R, Watson D, Wan CK: A three-factor model of trait anger:
Dimensions
of affect, behavior, and cognition. J Pers 68: 869-897, 2000.
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