Three Hostility Scales Applicable to Verbal Samples

Abstract

In previous publications, we have described scales developed to assess the relative magnitude of various labile psychologic states from small samples of speech. The speech samples, usually obtained in units of five minutes, have been elicited by standardized instructions designed to encourage subjects to associate freely. In these other reports, we have discussed reliability and validity studies on an anxiety scale¹⁸ and a schizophrenic scale of social alienation and personal disorganization.^21,25,26 Using the same raw data, namely speech, and the same general techniques of analyzing and scoring verbal content, we have devised scales for measuring three kinds of hostility, classified principally on the basis of direction: hostility directed outwards, ambivalently directed hostility, and hostility directed inwards. This paper will give, in detail, our working concepts of these hostility measures, and it will summarize reliability and validity studies of our method of measuring these