Concept

Cook-Medley hostility scale

Summary
The Cook-Medley Hostility Scale (Ho) is a standard in psychology designed to measure an individual's personality and temperament, specifically degrees of hostility. Initially developed as a scale for the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), scores from the hostility scale represent the individual's disposition towards cynicism and chronic hate. Scores from the scale have been used by studies as a predictor of the measured individual's risk of developing certain health problems as well as the success of their interpersonal relationships. Published by Walter W. Cook and Donald M. Medley in 1954, the scale has found extensive applications in defining hostility and aggression as a potential factor contributing to health and mortality. The scale's validity and reliability as a diagnosis, however, is still considered with a certain degree of controversy. The Cook-Medley Hostility Scale was developed by psychologists Walter W. Cook of the University of Minnesota and Donald M. Medley of Indiana University. The endeavor was approached with the initial aim of creating a scale that would function as a measure of an individual's interpersonal and social skills, as it was believed that such a scale would find use in identifying individuals who would flourish best in rapport-based work environments. A previous MMPI-based study from the University of Minnesota had shown that the success or failure of teacher-student rapports could be attributed to certain psychological and behavioral factors. In their study, Cook and Medley narrowed the determining factor of the teacher's success down to their inclinations towards hostility. Following the creation of a preliminary Ho scale, consisting of 77 items from the MMPI associated with determining hostility-related tendencies, application of the scale revealed it to be a consistent predictor of a teacher's rapport with their pupils. Teachers who scored higher on the Ho scale had poorer relationships with a correlation between high Ho scores and poor interpersonal rapports.
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