Measurement & Treatment Outcomes Flashcards

Which of the following anger measurement approaches is most vulnerable to social desirability bias?

Answer: Self-report questionnaires

Self-report measures depend on honest disclosure, making them susceptible to underreporting when respondents wish to appear socially acceptable.

When establishing a treatment outcome baseline, clinicians should ideally collect anger data across multiple time points before intervention begins in order to:

Answer: Establish stability and rule out natural fluctuation

Multiple baseline measurements confirm that the pre-treatment level is stable, ensuring that subsequent changes are attributable to intervention.

A forensic anger management program reports that 70% of participants showed 'clinically significant improvement.' According to Jacobson and Truax, this criterion requires that post-treatment scores:

Answer: Fall within the range of a non-clinical population and show reliable change

Jacobson and Truax's clinical significance framework requires both a reliable change (RCI) and that scores cross into the functional/non-clinical range.

Which anger management treatment modality has the strongest evidence base in controlled outcome studies for adult populations?

Answer: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT-based anger interventions have accumulated the most robust randomized controlled trial evidence demonstrating significant anger reduction in adults.

A therapist uses the Aggression Questionnaire (Buss-Perry) pre and post treatment. She is primarily measuring:

Answer: Trait-level aggression across physical, verbal, anger, and hostility subscales

The Buss-Perry AQ measures four dispositional aggression traits: physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility.

In a randomized controlled trial of anger management, a control group that receives no intervention is expected to show which pattern?

Answer: Minimal change, confirming that treatment effects are due to intervention

Waitlist or no-treatment control groups ideally show minimal change, allowing researchers to attribute improvement in the treatment group to the intervention.

To assess anger-related changes in real-world behavior (not just self-report), a clinician could use:

Answer: Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) via smartphone diary entries

EMA captures anger episodes in the moment across naturalistic settings, minimizing retrospective recall bias and increasing ecological validity.