Abstract
Objectives: Many studies demonstrated a relationship between hostility and physical or psychological health. Frequently, the Cook-Medley Hostility Scale (Ho scale), that is part of the MMPI, served as a tool for the assessment of hostility. The revision of the MMPI raises the question which scales of the new MMIP-2 should be selected for the measurement of hostility in the future.
Methods: A total of 262 subjects (67 coronary, 56 orthopedic patients, and 139 healthy subjects) filled in the Ho Scale and the subscales “cynicism”, “anger”, and “type A” of the MMPI-2 for an analysis of factorial and discriminant validity.
Results: Principle component analyses demonstrate that cynicism is the main dimension of hostility. This also pertains to the analyzed subscales of the MMPI-2. The subscale “cynicism” shows good psychometric properties and is strongly related to the Ho scale. ANOVAs and ANCOVAs show that only the cynicism scale and, partially, the Ho scale discriminate between healthy subjects and patients.
Conclusion: In future research, the cynicism subscale of the MMPI-2 should replace the Ho scale. This would be the best way to ensure comparability of future data to those of earlier studies that relied on the Ho scale for data assessment.
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