Inside the anger: development and validation of a new questionnaire

Background: Anger is a multifaceted emotion that is still largely unexplored, particularly in its maladaptive manifestations. Despite the existence of numerous assessments for anger, the complexity of the subject matter warrants the exploration of more evaluation tools. This questionnaire aims to make a valuable contribution by identifying aspects of anger experience that current tools fail to fully encompass. The proposed perspective is an assessment of anger that takes into account the individual's perceptions and emotions regarding themselves and their environment. This study aimed at validating a novel anger questionnaire (InAn - Inside the Anger). Methods: The enquiries were administered anonymously to employees of the Brescia municipality through a link. The municipal administration dispatched the link to its staff. The participants provided their informed consent electronically. The designated contact person originally explained the research to the inmates and specified the time and location for their meeting with the researchers. Notwithstanding the time investment required, we subsequently discovered that individuals could only complete one questionnaire. The inmates signed the written informed consent form. The newly developed anger questionnaire (InAn) was administered to 471 participants. Among these, 438 participants were recruited by the municipality of Brescia and 33 from Bollate prison. Responses were obtained using the InAn questionnaire, the STAXI-2 State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory 2, and the ANPS 3.1 Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales. Stata (version 18) was used to estimate Cronbach's alpha, perform exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, correlate items with subjects' attributes, and perform descriptive analyses of the items. Results: A total of 471 participants completed the questionnaire. Among these, 438 originated from the town of Brescia, while 33 were from the penitentiary in Bollate. In Bollate, participants only completed the InAn questionnaire. The InAn questionnaire includes 29 questions, with scenarios evaluated on a 4-point Likert Scale, allowing respondents to identify their level of anger (1= Never, 2= Sometimes, 3= Often, 4= Always). The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed five factors: Factor 1 'Ineffective arousal management', Factor 2 'Feelings of the self that disturb one's healthy affirmation', Factor 3 "Fragility cannot be integrated," and Factor 4 "In defence of boundaries," were identified and accounted for 92.7% of the total variance (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin [KMO] statistic = 0.8553). The questionnaire had an overall Cronbach's α of 0.876, signifying strong internal consistency; the Cronbach's α values for factors 1 to 4 were 0.7963, 0.8103, 0.6524, and 0.6793, respectively. We assessed the factor correlation matrix from the final exploratory factor analysis to confirm discriminant validity. We conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to validate the five-component model. Conclusion: The novel anger questionnaire (InAn) seeks to elucidate the foundational developmental aspects and processes that contribute to anger. This is predicated on the notion that this comprehension may benefit both individuals with anger management issues and practitioners.