Vengeance, anger and irrational beliefs in inmates: A caveat regarding social desirability

The present study investigated the interrelationships of vengeance, anger and irrational beliefs in an adult male inmate population. Fifty-two male inmates were administered the trait section of the State-Trait Personality Inventory (Spielberger, Jacobs, Crane, Russell, Westbury, Barker, Johnson, Knight & Marks, Preliminary Manual for the State-Trait Personality Inventory, 1979), the Anger Expression Scale (Spielberger, Johnson, Jacobs, Krasner, Oesterle & Worden, The Anger Expression (AX) Scale, 1986) the Belief Scale (Malouff & Schutte, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 54, 860–862 1986) and the Vengeance Scale (Stuckless & Goranson, Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 7, 25–42, 1992). The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale Form-C (Reynolds, Journal of Clinical Psychology 38, 119–125 1982) was significantly correlated with each of the measures. The implications of the social desirability contamination were discussed. Significant intercorrelations were found among the measures of vengeance, trait anger, expressed anger, and irrational beliefs, even after controlling for social desirability. Regression analysis demonstrated that both vengeance and anger accounted for unique variance in the inmatesʹ scores on self-reported hypothetical behaviour items.