Novaco Anger Inventory - Short Form (NAI-25)

Adapted From Novaco, R.W. (1975)

The Novaco anger inventory - short form, was initialled printed in Prof. Tony Kidman's book "Tactics For Change". It also provided a scoring range for interpretation. However, I decided to follow this up as the ranges appeared discordant to the mild interpretations offered. It appears that the scale (short form) has never been 'normed' nor investigated with respect to it's psychometric properties. With this in mind I offer the following from the measures section of a paper I have in submission. The participants were Vietnam veterans and their partners. This is a work in progress, but I hope it helps.

Psychometric Properties of The Novaco Anger Inventory - Short Form. The Novaco Anger Inventory - short form, was adapted from the long form (Novaco, 1975) and contains 25 of the original 90 items. The NAI - Long Form - purports to measure the degree of provocation or anger people would feel if placed in certain situations. This scale displays a convergent validity of .46 with the Buss-Durke Hostility Inventory, and .41 with the Aggression subscale of the Personality Research Form (Huss, Leak and Davis, 1993) as well as a test-retest reliability of between .78 and .91 (Mills, Kroner and Forth, 1998). In order to ascertain the validity of the Short Form a factor analysis was applied to the current full data set at intake (N = 207) and 4 factors with an eigenvalue above 1.00 were derived. However one factor derived an eigenvalue of 12.62 and accounted for over 50% of the variance. Only one item had a higher factor loading on any of the factors other than factor one. The factor loadings for factor one ranged between .53 and .79, with an average loading of .71. It is suggested that this scale, therefore, reliably only consists of one factor (anger). A Cronbach’s alpha of .96 was derived for the scale with an average inter-item correlation of .49, an item-total correlation of between .50 and .77, and a split-half reliability of .93. No test-retest reliability is available at this time.

[Above from: Devilly, G.J. (In Submission). The Psychological Effects of A Lifestyle Management Course on War Veterans and Their Spouses. Manuscript in Submission.]

Key References:

Huss, M.T., Leak, G.K. and Davis, S.F. (1993). A validation study of the Novaco Anger Inventory. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 31, 279-281.

Mills, J.F., Kroner, D.G. and Forth, A.E. (1998). Novaco Anger Scale: Reliability and validity within an adult criminal sample. Assessment, 5, 237-248.

Novaco, R.W. (1975). Anger control: The development of an experimental treatment. Lexington, KY: Lexington.

 

Scale (Also available in pdf format for ease of administration):

Novaco Anger Inventory (Short Form)

The items on this scale describe situations that are related to anger arousal. For each of the items please rate the degree to which the incident described would anger or provoke you by ticking the appropriate degree of annoyance. Try to imagine the incident actually happening to you, and then indicate the extent to which it would have made you angry.

In the actual situations, the degree of anger that you would experience would depend on other factors that are not specified in the items (such as what kind of situation, how the act occurred, etc.). This scale is concerned with your general reactions, and so the details of the particular situations have been omitted. Please do your best to rate your responses in this general fashion.

Tick (T) the degree to which you would feel angry or annoyed in the following situations (please tick only one anger rating for each situation):

Situation.

Very Little

Little

Moderate Amount

Much

Very Much

You unpack an appliance you have just bought, plug it in, and discover that it doesn’t work

 .

.

.

.

.

Being overcharged by a repair person who has you over a barrel

.

.

.

.

.

Being singled out for a correction, while the actions of others go unnoticed

.

.

.

.

.

Getting your car stuck in the mud or sand

.

.

.

.

.

You are talking to someone and they don’t answer you

.

.

.

.

.

Someone pretends to be something they are not

.

.

.

.

.

While you are struggling to carry four cups of coffee to your table at a cafeteria, someone bumps into you, spilling the coffee

.

.

.

.

.

You have hung up your clothes, but someone knocks them to the floor and fails to pick them up

.

.

.

.

.

You are hounded by a sales person from the moment you walk into the store

.

.

.

.

.

You have made arrangements to go somewhere with a person who backs off at the last minute and leaves you dangling

.

.

.

.

.

Being joked about or teased

.

.

.

.

.

Your car is stalled at a traffic light, and the person behind you keeps blowing his horn

.

.

.

.

.

You accidentally make the wrong kind of turn in a car park. As you get out of your car someone yells at you, "where did you learn to drive?"

.

.

.

.

.

Someone makes a mistake and blames it on you

.

.

.

.

.

You are trying to concentrate, but a person near you is tapping their foot

.

.

.

.

.

You lend someone an important book or tool, and they fail to return it

.

.

.

.

.

You have had a busy day, and the person you live with starts to complain about how you forgot to do something you agreed to

.

.

.

.

.

You are trying to discuss something important with your mate or partner who isn’t giving you a chance to express your feelings

.

.

.

.

.

You are in a discussion with someone who persists in arguing about a topic they know very little about

.

.

.

.

.

Someone sticks his or her nose into an argument between you and someone else

.

.

.

.

.

You need to get somewhere quickly, but the car in front of you is going 40 km/h in a 60 km/h zone, and you can’t pass

.

.

.

.

.

Stepping on a lump of chewing gum

.

.

.

.

.

Being mocked by a small group of people as you pass them

.

.

.

.

.

In a hurry to get somewhere, you tear a good pair of trousers / skirt on a sharp object

.

.

.

.

.

You use your last coin to make a phone call, but you are disconnected before you finish dialling and the coin is lost

.

.

.

.

.

Thank You!

Scoring:

Answer Given

 Score
Very Little  0
Little  1
Moderate Amount  2
Much  3
Very Much  4

Norms:

T.B.A.