Purpose

The purpose of this scale is to record anger and support.

Analysis

The Anger and Support Scale (AAS) was developed to measure the perceived level of support surrounding the emotion of anger. The AAS is a measure specifically adapted to assess anger, including types of support likely to respond to a wide range of stressful events (Cohen & Wills, 1985), such as emotional and informational support. It does not define the type of relationship (which broadens its applicability) and has been standardized with an African American adolescent population. Additionally, the AAS is self-explanatory, easy to use, freely available, and time-efficient, making it an ideal research tool when participants’ time is limited or when multiple measures are being applied.

Calibration

The Anger and Support Scale (AAS) measures the perceived level of support within a participant’s feelings of anger. Participants respond to each question using a 5-point Likert-type scale, with 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. High scores on the AAS indicate a higher level of perceived support. With a possible range from 6 to 30, the average AAS score was 16.98 with a standard deviation of 6.36. The overall internal consistency of the 6-item AAS yielded a strong reliability score (α = .857), indicating a high degree of internal consistency among the items in the scale. Total item correlations ranged from .59 to .68, indicating the presence of correlation between each item and the rest of the measure.
A = Strongly Agree (SA)
B = Moderately Agree (MA)
C = Agree and Disagree Equally (A/D)
D = Moderately Disagree (MD)
E = Strongly Disagree (SD)

References

Russell, Jaquaye. “Instrument Development: Youth Anger, Youth Forgiveness, and Youth Emotional Support” (2013). University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Theses and Dissertations. Paper 264.