MULTILEVEL ITEM RESPONSE THEORY ANALYSIS OF THE ANGER REGULATION AND EXPRESSION SCALE: A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF ANGER IN YOUTH

Anger research among youth is increasingly recognized as an important area to inform guided intervention for children and adolescents with clinical levels of anger. However, most psychometric assessments, including measures of anger, are developed in the United States and are based in Western culture, potentially limiting their efficacy when applied internationally. The Anger Regulation and Expression Scale Short Form (ARES-S) is a comprehensive self-report assessment of the expression and regulation of anger in youth which has been used in research across numerous countries. Using a Multilevel Item Response Theory (MLIRT) approach, we analyzed country specific modulation of the expression of anger by examining the differences in response patterns to the ARES-S between youth from Australia, Greece, Italy, Serbia, South Africa, the United States, and Vietnam. Interestingly, item discrimination between countries varied greatly, indicating differences in anger expression and regulation across these countries. Further, we applied country-specific MLIRT scoring which improved the clinical predictive power of the ARES-S internationally while maintaining a similar predictive power in the United States