Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T19:10:54.792Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Development of the Anger Children’s Cognitive Error Scale and the Anger Children’s Automatic Thought Scale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2022

Kohei Kishida*
Affiliation:
Organization for Research Initiatives and Development, Doshisha University, 1-3, Tatara Miyakodani, Kyotanabe-shi, Kyoto, Japan Faculty of Psychology, Doshisha University, 1-3, Tatara Miyakodani, Kyotanabe-shi, Kyoto, Japan
Masaya Takebe
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology, Rissho University, 4-2-16, Osaki, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Chisato Kuribayashi
Affiliation:
Tokyo Women’s College of Physical Education, 4-30-1, Fujimidai, Kunitachi-city, Tokyo, Japan
Yuichi Tanabe
Affiliation:
School Counselor, Nara Prefectural Board of Education, 22-1, Hatanosyo, Tawaramoto-cho shiki-gun, Nara, Japan
Shin-ichi Ishikawa
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology, Doshisha University, 1-3, Tatara Miyakodani, Kyotanabe-shi, Kyoto, Japan
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Background:

Empirical studies between anger and anger-provoking cognitive variables in children and adolescents are lacking, despite numerous studies on internalising and externalising problems.

Aim:

The purpose of this study was to develop new questionnaires for anger-provoking cognitive errors and automatic thoughts, and examine relationships between anger, cognitive errors, and automatic thoughts in children and adolescents.

Method:

Participants were 485 Japanese children and adolescents aged 9–15 years old (254 females; average age 12.07; SD = 1.81). They completed the Anger Children’s Cognitive Error Scale (A-CCES) and the Anger Children’s Automatic Thought Scale (A-CATS), which were developed in this study, as well as the Anger Scale for Children and Adolescents and the Japanese version of Short Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale.

Results:

Both the A-CCES and the A-CATS had adequate reliability (internal consistency) and validity (face validity, structural validity and construct validity). A hierarchal regression analysis indicated that automatic thoughts were positively and moderately related to anger (β = .37) after controlling for age, gender, anxiety symptoms, cognitive errors and interaction term. Moreover, a mediation analysis indicated that automatic thoughts significantly mediated the relationship between cognitive errors and anger (indirect effect, 0.24; 95% CI: .020 to .036).

Conclusions:

This study developed the new questionnaires to assess anger-provoking cognitive errors and automatic thoughts. In addition, this study revealed that automatic thoughts rather than cognitive errors are associated with anger in children and adolescents.

Type
Main
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). American Psychiatric Association Publishing.Google Scholar
Beck, A. T. (1979). Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. Penguin.Google Scholar
Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., & Emery, G. (Ed.). (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children’s social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 74101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Castro, B. O., Veerman, J. W., Koops, W., Bosch, J. D., & Monshouwer, H. J. (2002). Hostile attribution of intent and aggressive behavior: a meta-analysis. Child Development, 73, 916934.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epkins, C. C. (1996). Cognitive specificity and affective confounding in social anxiety and dysphoria in children. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 18, 83101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hogendoorn, S. M., Wolters, L. H., Vervoort, L., Prins, P. J., Boer, F., Kooij, E., & De Haan, E. (2010). Measuring negative and positive thoughts in children: an adaptation of the Children’s Automatic Thoughts Scale (CATS). Cognitive Therapy and Research, 34, 467478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, K. L., Schouboe, S. N., Kircanski, K., Leibenluft, E., Stringaris, A., & Gotlib, I. H. (2019). Irritability, externalizing, and internalizing psychopathology in adolescence: cross-sectional and longitudinal associations and moderation by sex. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 48, 781789.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ishikawa, S. (2012). Cognitive errors, anxiety, and depression in Japanese children and adolescents. International Journal of Cognitive Therapy, 5, 3849.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ishikawa, S. (2015). A cognitive-behavioral model of anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. Japanese Psychological Research, 57, 180193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ishikawa, S., Ishii, R., Fukuzumi, N., Murayama, K., Ohtani, K., Sakaki, M., Suzuki, T., & Tanaka, A. (2018). Development, reliability, and validity of the Japanese short version of the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale for Adolescents. Anxiety Disorder Research, 10, 6473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ishikawa, S., & Sakano, Y. (2003). Cognitive error and trait anxiety in children: development of a children’s cognitive error scale. Japanese Association of Behavioral Therapies, 29, 145157.Google Scholar
Ishikawa, S., & Sakano, Y. (2005). Investigation on the relationship between self-statement and anxiety symptoms in children. Japanese Association of Behavioral Therapies, 31, 4557.Google Scholar
Kerr, M. A., & Schneider, B. H. (2008). Anger expression in children and adolescents: a review of the empirical literature. Clinical Psychology Review, 28, 559577.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kishida, K., & Ishikawa, S. (2016). The factor structure of cognitive errors in adolescents and their relations with depressive and anxiety symptoms. Japanese Journal of Cognitive Therapy, 9, 150160.Google Scholar
Leitenberg, H., Yost, L. W., & Carroll-Wilson, M. (1986). Negative cognitive errors in children: questionnaire development, normative data, and comparisons between children with and without self-reported symptoms of depression, low self-esteem, and evaluation anxiety. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 54, 528536.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leung, P. W., & Poon, M. W. (2001). Dysfunctional schemas and cognitive distortions in psychopathology: a test of the specificity hypothesis. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 755765.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Masuda, T., Kanetsuki, M., Sekiguchi, Y., & Nedate, K. (2005). Development of the Anger Self-Statements Questionnaire (ASSQ) and investigation of its reliability and validity. Japanese Association of Behavioral Therapies, 31, 3144.Google Scholar
Maric, M., Heyne, D. A., van Widenfelt, B. M., & Westenberg, P. M. (2011). Distorted cognitive processing in youth: the structure of negative cognitive errors and their associations with anxiety. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 35, 1120.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martinelli, A., Ackermann, K., Bernhard, A., Freitag, C. M., & Schwenck, C. (2018). Hostile attribution bias and aggression in children and adolescents: a systematic literature review on the influence of aggression subtype and gender. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 39, 2532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulraney, M. A., Melvin, G. A., & Tonge, B. J. (2014). Psychometric properties of the Affective Reactivity Index in Australian adults and adolescents. Psychological Assessment, 26, 148155.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roy, A. K., Brotman, M. A., & Leibenluft, E. (Eds.). (2019). Irritability in Pediatric Psychopathology. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sato, H., Ishikawa, S., & Arai, K. (2004). The effect of logical thinking error on the symptoms of depression and anxiety disorders in children. Japanese Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 10, 7380.Google Scholar
Sato, H., & Shimada, H. (2006). Negative and positive automatic thoughts and symptoms of depression and anxiety in childhood. Japanese Association of Behavioral Therapies, 32, 113.Google Scholar
Schniering, C. A., & Rapee, R. M. (2002). Development and validation of a measure of children’s automatic thoughts: The Children’s Automatic Thoughts Scale. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 40, 10911109.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schniering, C. A., & Rapee, R. M. (2004). The relationship between automatic thoughts and negative emotions in children and adolescents: a test of the cognitive content-specificity hypothesis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 113, 464470.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schwartz, J. S., & Maric, M. (2015). Negative cognitive errors in youth: specificity to anxious and depressive symptoms and age differences. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 43, 526537.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spence, S. H., Sawyer, M. G., Sheffield, J., Patton, G., Bond, L., Graetz, B., & Kay, D. (2014). Does the absence of a supportive family environment influence the outcome of a universal intervention for the prevention of depression? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 11, 51135132.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stoddard, J., Sharif-Askary, B., Harkins, E. A., Frank, H. R., Brotman, M. A., Penton-Voak, I. S., Maoz, K., Bar-Haim, Y., Munafò, M., Pine, D. S., & Leibenluft, E. (2016). An open pilot study of training hostile interpretation bias to treat disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 26, 4957.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stringaris, A., & Taylor, E. (2015). Disruptive Mood: Irritability in Children and Adolescents. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sukhodolsky, D. G., Vitulano, L. A., Carroll, D. H., McGuire, J., Leckman, J. F., & Scahill, L. (2009). Randomized trial of anger control training for adolescents with Tourette’s syndrome and disruptive behavior. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 48, 413421.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Takebe, M., Kishida, K., Sato, M., Takahashi, F., & Sato, H. (2017) Development of an anger scale for children and adolescents and examination of its reliability and validity. Japanese Association of Behavioral Therapies, 43, 169179.Google Scholar
Vidal-Ribas, P., Brotman, M. A., Valdivieso, I., Leibenluft, E., & Stringaris, A. (2016). The status of irritability in psychiatry: a conceptual and quantitative review. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 55, 556570.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weems, C. F., Berman, S. L., Silverman, W. K., & Saavedra, L. M. (2001). Cognitive errors in youth with anxiety disorders: the linkages between negative cognitive errors and anxious symptoms. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 25, 559575.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.