State Hostility Scale

1. Abstract

The State Hostility Scale (SHOS), originally developed by Craig A. Anderson, William E. Deuser, and K. M. DeNeve (1995), is an empirically validated self-report psychometric instrument designed to evaluate momentary affective states related to anger, irritation, and hostile feelings. Formulated to capture transient emotional fluctuations rather than chronic, enduring personality dispositions, the scale assesses how an individual feels at a given moment in response to situational triggers, ambient environmental conditions, experimental laboratory manipulations, or media consumption. The full scale comprises 35 affective adjective descriptors (e.g., “furious,” “aggravated,” “stormy,” “friendly,” “kindly”), presented to participants under the neutral cover title “Current Mood” to reduce evaluation apprehension and demand characteristics. Participants respond using a 5-point Likert-type response format ranging from 1 (“Strongly Disagree”) to 5 (“Strongly Agree”).

The scale integrates 25 directly scored items reflecting hostile affect and 10 reverse-scored items reflecting prosocial, benevolent, or affiliative feelings (e.g., “tender,” “polite,” “sympathetic”). Item content was historically adapted from established emotional inventories, primarily the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List by Zuckerman and Lubin (1964) and the State-Trait Anger Scale developed by Spielberger and colleagues (1983). Across dozens of experimental studies within social psychology, affective neuroscience, and media psychology, the State Hostility Scale has consistently demonstrated robust psychometric properties. Internal consistency reliability estimates routinely exceed a Cronbach’s alpha of .90 (often ranging between .91 and .95). Construct, convergent, and discriminant validity have been rigorously confirmed through observed correlations with physiological arousal, hostile cognitive accessibility, physical pain, high ambient temperatures, competitive or violent video game play, and laboratory-based behavioral aggression paradigms.

2. Keywords

State Hostility Scale, SHOS, Craig A. Anderson, General Aggression Model, affective aggression, state anger, hostile affect, media violence, psychometrics, emotional reactivity, self-report inventory

3. Authors

The State Hostility Scale was conceptualized, operationalized, and published by a prominent team of social psychological researchers specializing in aggression, emotion, and experimental psychometrics:

• Craig A. Anderson, Ph.D.: Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Department of Psychology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA. Contact: W112 Lagomarcino Hall, Ames, IA 50011-3180; Email: [email protected]. Dr. Anderson is internationally recognized for his pioneering theoretical and empirical contributions to the General Aggression Model (GAM), temperature-aggression relationships, and the cognitive-affective effects of interactive digital media.
• William E. Deuser, Ph.D.: Research Associate and co-investigator at the Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri, USA. Dr. Deuser co-developed the early laboratory paradigms testing cognitive-neoassociationistic mechanisms of affect and arousal.
• Kristine M. DeNeve, Ph.D.: Quantitative psychologist and researcher affiliated with the Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri, USA, notable for foundational meta-analytic and empirical work on personality, affect, and subjective well-being.

Foundational item pools were drawn from prior developmental inventories authored by Marvin Zuckerman, Bernard Lubin, and colleagues (1964) as well as Charles D. Spielberger and colleagues (1983).

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the State Hostility Scale is to quantify acute, momentary alterations in hostile affect. In psychological measurement, a fundamental distinction exists between trait hostility—conceptualized as a stable, long-standing personality characteristic characterized by cynicism, chronic mistrust, and habitual resentment—and state hostility, which represents a situational, time-bound emotional episode marked by subjective feelings of tension, annoyance, irritation, fury, and rage. The SHOS was created to provide experimental social psychologists with a sensitive, fine-grained, and structurally valid measurement tool capable of capturing rapid shifts in affective state following exposure to specific environmental, physical, or social perturbations.

Prior to the establishment of the SHOS, many existing affect scales suffered from critical methodological limitations. Dichotomous adjective checklists (such as standard check/no-check formats) frequently lacked parametric sensitivity to subtle changes in emotional intensity. Conversely, broad-spectrum affect scales like the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) captured generalized negative activation (e.g., distress, guilt, nervousness) rather than isolating the distinct subjective phenomenological core of aggressive, antagonistic, or hostile feelings. Furthermore, several existing anger inventories concentrated exclusively on intense emotional outbursts, failing to capture lower-intensity states of irritation or the suppression of affiliative feelings. The SHOS resolved these issues by combining a continuous Likert response format with a balanced semantic space encompassing high-activation anger, low-activation resentment, and reverse-keyed prosocial warmth.

The clinical and experimental applications of the SHOS are extensive:

• Experimental Social Psychology: Serving as a primary dependent measure or mediating variable in laboratory studies testing theories of human aggression, such as the General Aggression Model (GAM) and Cognitive Neoassociation Theory.
• Media Psychology: Quantifying immediate affective reactions to violent television, narrative cinema, music with aggressive lyrical content, and interactive video games.
• Environmental and Health Psychology: Assessing the psychological impacts of physiological stressors, including uncomfortably hot temperatures, physical pain, noise pollution, overcrowding, and sleep deprivation.
• Intergroup Conflict and Social Cognition: Measuring instantaneous affective hostility triggered by social identity threats, stereotyping, ostracism, competitive instructions, and interpersonal provocation.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the State Hostility Scale is state hostile affect. Within contemporary affective science, hostile affect is conceptualized as an integrated multifaceted subjective state comprising feelings of anger, resentment, enmity, annoyance, and actionable antagonism. Unlike cognitive hostility (which involves cognitive schemas, attribution of malicious intent, and cynical worldviews) or behavioral hostility (which involves verbal degradation or physical violence), state hostile affect represents the visceral emotional response to perceived threats, frustrations, or unpleasant aversive events.

Although frequently scored and analyzed as a single, unidimensional composite index of hostile mood, the 35 items of the SHOS structurally encompass four identifiable conceptual dimensions:

• Overt Hostile/Aggressive Urges: This dimension taps high-arousal action tendencies and aggressive impulses directed outward. Items such as “I feel like banging on a table,” “I feel like yelling at somebody,” “I feel like swearing,” and “I feel like I’m about to explode” represent behavioral preparedness to discharge aggressive tension into the immediate physical or social environment.
• Direct High-Activation Anger and Rage: Reflecting the classical physiological and subjective state of acute rage, this facet includes items such as “I feel furious,” “I feel outraged,” “I feel mad,” “I feel burned up,” “I feel angry,” and “I feel enraged.” These markers denote high sympathetic nervous system arousal combined with intense negative emotional valence.
• Low-Activation Irritation, Bitterness, and Discontent: Not all hostile feelings manifest as explosive fury. Hostility frequently operates as a smoldering, sullen, or resentful mood state. Items capturing this nuance include “I feel aggravated,” “I feel stormy,” “I feel discontented,” “I feel irritated,” “I feel frustrated,” “I feel unsociable,” “I feel offended,” “I feel bitter,” “I feel disgusted,” and “I feel disagreeable.”
• Absence of Prosocial and Affiliative Affect (Reverse-Scored): A critical operational feature of the SHOS is the theoretical premise that hostile states represent not only the presence of active antagonism, but also the marked depletion or suppression of empathy, warmth, and interpersonal tenderness. Items such as “I feel tender,” “I feel polite,” “I feel kindly,” “I feel agreeable,” “I feel tame,” “I feel friendly,” “I feel understanding,” “I feel amiable,” “I feel cooperative,” “I feel good-natured,” and “I feel sympathetic” capture the positive social feelings that actively diminish during episodes of hostility.

Methodologically, the inclusion of archaic or semantically complex items—specifically item 2 (“willful”), item 4 (“tender”), and item 35 (“vexed”)—has been documented by Anderson and colleagues as occasionally yielding suboptimal item-total correlations due to contemporary lexical drift or participant reading comprehension issues. In contemporary laboratory use, investigators frequently evaluate whether to retain or drop these three items to optimize psychometric coherence without altering the scale’s fundamental construct coverage.

6. Theoretical Framework

The State Hostility Scale is theoretically anchored in the intersection of Leonard Berkowitz’s Cognitive Neoassociation Theory of affective aggression and Craig A. Anderson’s General Aggression Model (GAM). Berkowitz (1989, 1993) postulated that aversive events—including physical pain, extreme ambient temperatures, social frustration, and foul odors—automatically produce negative affect. This undifferentiated negative affect instantly stimulates two primitive physiological and behavioral networks: the fight system and the flight system. Activation of the fight network spontaneously activates anger-related emotional states, hostile thoughts, motor tendencies, and cardiovascular excitation.

The General Aggression Model (GAM; Anderson & Bushman, 2002; Lindsay & Anderson, 2000) formalized this architecture into an integrative metatheory explaining how personal factors (e.g., trait hostility, attitudes toward violence) and situational factors (e.g., weapon exposure, violent video games, physical discomfort, social provocation) jointly influence an individual’s internal state. The GAM conceptualizes this internal state as three interconnected, dynamically interacting pathways: cognition (accessible aggressive concepts and scripts), arousal (physiological and perceived autonomic activation), and affect (subjective feelings of anger and hostility).

Within the GAM framework, the State Hostility Scale serves as the standard operationalization of the internal affective state pathway. According to foundational studies by Anderson, Deuser, and DeNeve (1995) and Anderson, Anderson, and Deuser (1996), changes in environmental inputs (e.g., raising room temperatures from comfortable 70°F [21°C] conditions to oppressive 95°F [35°C] conditions) directly stimulate negative affect, which amplifies hostile affect measured via the SHOS. This elevated hostile affect subsequently facilitates the accessibility of aggressive cognitions (priming effects) and biases subsequent cognitive appraisal processes toward attributing hostile intent to ambiguous social cues, ultimately increasing the probability of overt behavioral aggression.

7. Validity

The construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related predictive validity of the State Hostility Scale has been empirically substantiated through hundreds of experimental and observational investigations over three decades:

• Construct and Convergent Validity: SHOS scores demonstrate high convergent validity with concurrent physiological and psychological measures of distress and anger. Anderson, Deuser, and DeNeve (1995) showed that exposure to uncomfortably hot environmental conditions systematically increases SHOS scores, aligning with theoretical models of affective aggression. Furthermore, the scale strongly correlates with established trait anger inventories (such as the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire and Spielberger’s Trait Anger Scale), demonstrating that individuals with elevated trait irritability consistently report higher baseline and post-frustration state hostility (Anderson, 1997).
• Experimental Sensitivity and Manipulative Validity: The SHOS exhibits pronounced sensitivity to diverse laboratory manipulations. In experimental media psychology, Anderson and Dill (2000) as well as Anderson and Morrow (1995) demonstrated that participants randomly assigned to play violent or highly competitive video games exhibited statistically significant increases in SHOS scores compared to control participants playing non-violent games. Similar elevations have been documented following the induction of physical pain via the cold pressor task (Anderson et al., 1998) and viewing violent cinematic stimuli (Anderson, 1997).
• Predictive Criterion Validity: Elevated scores on the State Hostility Scale directly predict retaliatory aggression in controlled laboratory paradigms. In competitive reaction-time trials (e.g., the Taylor Aggression Paradigm), participants exhibiting higher SHOS scores deliver significantly higher, longer-lasting, and more punitive auditory blasts or noxious electric shocks to ostensible opponents (Lindsay & Anderson, 2000; Anderson & Dill, 2000). Path-analytic structural equation models demonstrate that state hostility acts as an indispensable statistical mediator linking situational provocations to overt aggressive behaviors.
• Discriminant Validity: Research confirms that the SHOS discriminates hostile affect from general somatic anxiety, depressive mood, and general physiological exhaustion. While items from general distress measures correlate moderately with the SHOS due to shared negative valence, the SHOS specifically tracks approach-oriented antagonistic emotions rather than avoidance-oriented fearful states.

8. Reliability

The State Hostility Scale demonstrates exceptional psychometric reliability, specifically regarding internal consistency. Across numerous empirical datasets spanning diverse demographic populations, sample sizes, and experimental settings:

• Internal Consistency: Cronbach’s alpha ($\alpha$) coefficients for the full 35-item scale consistently fall between .91 and .95 (Anderson, Deuser, & DeNeve, 1995; Anderson, Anderson, & Deuser, 1996; Anderson & Dill, 2000). When the three psychometrically problematic items (item 2: “willful,” item 4: “tender,” and item 35: “vexed”) are excluded, resulting in a 32-item composite, Cronbach’s alpha typically remains robust between .92 and .96, with average inter-item correlations remaining exceptionally stable.
• Split-Half and McDonald’s Omega Reliability: Investigations evaluating composite reliability indices routinely report McDonald’s omega ($\omega$) values exceeding .93, underscoring that the scale’s true-score variance is heavily dominated by a single primary affective dimension.
• Test-Retest Dynamics: Because the State Hostility Scale is explicitly designed to measure a fluctuating, transient state rather than a static psychological trait, long-term test-retest reliability coefficients are expected to be low to moderate. In stable, non-manipulated control conditions over brief 15- to 30-minute laboratory intervals, short-term test-retest correlations hover around .75 to .84. However, across experimental manipulations (e.g., pre- vs. post-gameplay or post-provocation), correlations drop significantly, directly reflecting the instrument’s empirical sensitivity to situational variations.

9. Factor Analysis

Structural psychometric evaluations of the State Hostility Scale using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) have illuminated the dimensional architecture of the instrument:

In original exploratory principal components analyses conducted with varimax and oblique rotations, a dominant first unrotated general factor accounting for a substantial proportion of the total item variance (frequently between 35% and 45%) regularly emerges. This robust first factor justifies the widespread empirical convention of calculating a single global State Hostility composite score by summing or averaging all items (with appropriate reverse coding).

When multi-factor structures are examined via CFA, a four-factor correlated model offers superior fit compared to a strict single-factor unidimensional model:

• Factor 1: Feeling Aggressive / Aggressive Urges (items tapping physical impulses to act out, such as “banging on a table,” “yelling at somebody,” “swearing”). Standardized factor loadings typically range from .62 to .81.
• Factor 2: Overt Rage and Anger (items measuring acute anger, including “furious,” “enraged,” “burned up,” “mad”). Standardized factor loadings generally span .68 to .88.
• Factor 3: Irritation and Resentment (items capturing low-grade or sullen antagonism, such as “aggravated,” “irritated,” “discontented,” “bitter”). Standardized factor loadings range between .55 and .78.
• Factor 4: Prosocial and Affiliative Affect (Inverted) (reverse-scored items such as “friendly,” “amiable,” “good-natured,” “kindly”). Standardized factor loadings on this latent construct range from -.58 to -.82.

Model fit indices across structural evaluations demonstrate acceptable to good overall fit for the multi-factor hierarchical solution, with Comparative Fit Index (CFI) values ranging between .90 and .94, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) values between .048 and .062, and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) values below .055. Cross-loading analyses consistently reveal that items 2 (“willful”), 4 (“tender”), and 35 (“vexed”) exhibit split loadings or low primary loadings (< .30), confirming the developer’s recommendation regarding their potential exclusion.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: State Hostility Scale (frequently administered under the cover title “Current Mood”).
• Acronym: SHOS.
• Instrument Type: Self-report psychological state inventory.
• Target Population: Adolescents and adults (typically ages 14 and older; elementary reading proficiency required for standard forms).
• Total Item Count: 35 items (full original scale) or 32 items (recommended short form excluding items 2, 4, and 35).
• Response Format: 5-point Likert-type rating scale:
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Neither Agree Nor Disagree
  • 4 = Agree
  • 5 = Strongly Agree
• Scoring Protocol:
  • Reverse Scored Items (10 items): Items 4 (“tender”), 6 (“polite”), 11 (“kindly”), 14 (“agreeable”), 18 (“tame”), 20 (“friendly”), 21 (“understanding”), 22 (“amiable”), 28 (“cooperative”), 31 (“good-natured”), and 34 (“sympathetic”). Recode these values: 1 → 5, 2 → 4, 3 → 3, 4 → 2, 5 → 1.
  • Directly Scored Items (25 items): All remaining items are scored directly as marked (1 = 1 to 5 = 5).
  • Composite Score Calculation: Sum or average all responses across the 35 (or 32) items. Higher scores reflect higher levels of acute hostile affect. If computing an average score, the resulting range is 1.00 to 5.00; if summing the full 35-item scale, scores range from 35 to 175.
• Administration Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The State Hostility Scale was first formally published in 1995 in the seminal article titled “Hot temperatures, hostile affect, hostile cognition, and arousal: Tests of a general model of affective aggression” by Craig A. Anderson, William E. Deuser, and Kristine M. DeNeve, appearing in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Licensing and Availability: The developer, Dr. Craig A. Anderson, has placed these scale materials in the open academic domain for non-commercial, scholarly research purposes. Qualified researchers, educators, and clinicians are permitted to utilize, administer, and adapt the scale free of charge without paying royalties or licensing fees. The scale forms have been archived and made publicly downloadable through Dr. Anderson’s academic faculty repository at Iowa State University. In exchange for the free utilization of the instrument, the author requests that investigators provide appropriate bibliographic citation to the original 1995 empirical paper and optionally forward electronic reprints or copies of published studies utilizing the scale to Dr. Anderson ([email protected]).

12. References

Anderson, C. A. (1997). Effects of violent movies and trait irritability on hostile feelings and aggressive thoughts. Aggressive Behavior, 23(3), 161–178. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012278805-5/50011-7

Anderson, C. A., Anderson, K. B., & Deuser, W. E. (1996). Examining an affective aggression framework: Weapon and temperature effects on aggressive thoughts, affect, and attitudes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(4), 366–376. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167296224004

Anderson, C. A., Anderson, K. B., Dorr, N., DeNeve, K. M., & Flanagan, M. (2000). Temperature and aggression. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 32, 63–133. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(00)80004-0

Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2002). Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53(1), 27–51. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135231

Anderson, C. A., Deuser, W. E., & DeNeve, K. M. (1995). Hot temperatures, hostile affect, hostile cognition, and arousal: Tests of a general model of affective aggression. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21(5), 434–448. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167295215002

Anderson, C. A., & Dill, K. E. (2000). Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(4), 772–790. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.4.772

Anderson, C. A., & Morrow, M. (1995). Competitive aggression without interaction: Effects of competitive versus cooperative instructions on aggressive behavior in video games. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21(10), 1020–1030. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672952110003

Anderson, K. B., Anderson, C. A., Dill, K. E., & Deuser, W. E. (1998). The interactive relations between trait hostility, pain, and aggressive thoughts. Aggressive Behavior, 24(3), 161–171. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.106.1.59

Berkowitz, L. (1993). Aggression: Its causes, consequences, and control. McGraw-Hill.

Lindsay, J. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2000). From antecedent conditions to violent actions: A general affective aggression model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(5), 533–547. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167200267001

Spielberger, C. D., Jacobs, G., Russell, S., & Crane, R. S. (1983). Assessment of anger: The State-Trait Anger Scale. In J. N. Butcher & C. D. Spielberger (Eds.), Advances in personality assessment (Vol. 2, pp. 159–187). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Zuckerman, M., Lubin, B., Vogel, L., & Valerius, E. (1964). Measurement of experimentally induced affects. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 28(5), 418–425. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0044569

13. Items of the Scale