Psychological
studies
Year 13
Criminal
Clinical
,Criminal
Contemporary study
Howells et al (2005)
Aim;
To determine whether anger management is more effective than no treatment in producing
change. To investigate whether improvement in treatment can be predicted from pretreatment
offender characteristics, particularly pretreatment level of need and offender readiness for
treatment.
Sample;
● 418 initial ppts
● 285 completed the post intervention assessment
● 78 completed the two month follow up
● 21 completed the six month follow up - the smaller number in these follow ups were
planned and do not reflect a high dropout rate
● 73% had not previously completed an anger management course, 20% had (4% of that
20% completed more than one and 3% had attempted but failed to fully complete one)
● Crimes committed by the ppts included violent crimes both with and without bodily harm,
violent crime with injuries leading to death and a range of non violent crimes
● Ranged in age from 18 - 62 with a mean age of 28.8
● Ppts taken from an australian prison
Procedure;
The study compared an experimental group on an anger management programme with a control
group who were on the waiting list to begin the programme. Both groups completed measures
immediately before and after the anger management programme and then two and six months
later. The anger management program was based on a cognitive approach to behaviour and ran
for 10 sessions, each session being 2 hours long. Programme content includes things such as
, structured exercises focusing on skills such as identifying provocations, cognitive restructuring
and relapse prevention.self report data was collected from both the control and experimental
group. Data about the ppts aggression was collected from two officers for the prison or a staff
member for those in the community based programme.effectiveness of the programme was
measured via multiple scales/questionnaires. For example the STAXI which measures anger
expression and control by distinguishing between state and trait anger. Another example is the
SCQ which measures motivation to change based on the transtheoretical model of change and is a
measure of treatment readiness.
Results;
● Overall, there were no statistically significant differences between the pre and post
treatment scores between the control and experimental group. There was a trend for
improvements over time, with the treatment group showing slightly higher
improvement.
● The results did show that prisoners who undertook the anger management programme
showed significantly greater improvement in anger knowledge than the prisoners in the
control group.
● The treatment group improved by 1.5 in controlling their anger compared to a 0.5
improvement for controls.
● Treatment group improved by 1.8 in their understanding of anger compared to a 0.95
increase for controls.
● The degree of improvement was found to be predictable from pretreatment measures of
anger and treatment readiness. The readiness scale proved to be a consistent predictor of
improvement. Offenders who were motivated to change and to work on their anger
problems showed the highest improvements on their anger measures.
Conclusion;
The results demonstrate that the overall impact of the anger management programme was small.
Whilst the experimental group made changes in the expected directions, there was no real
statistical significance. The extent of change in an individual was shown to be predictable to a
studies
Year 13
Criminal
Clinical
,Criminal
Contemporary study
Howells et al (2005)
Aim;
To determine whether anger management is more effective than no treatment in producing
change. To investigate whether improvement in treatment can be predicted from pretreatment
offender characteristics, particularly pretreatment level of need and offender readiness for
treatment.
Sample;
● 418 initial ppts
● 285 completed the post intervention assessment
● 78 completed the two month follow up
● 21 completed the six month follow up - the smaller number in these follow ups were
planned and do not reflect a high dropout rate
● 73% had not previously completed an anger management course, 20% had (4% of that
20% completed more than one and 3% had attempted but failed to fully complete one)
● Crimes committed by the ppts included violent crimes both with and without bodily harm,
violent crime with injuries leading to death and a range of non violent crimes
● Ranged in age from 18 - 62 with a mean age of 28.8
● Ppts taken from an australian prison
Procedure;
The study compared an experimental group on an anger management programme with a control
group who were on the waiting list to begin the programme. Both groups completed measures
immediately before and after the anger management programme and then two and six months
later. The anger management program was based on a cognitive approach to behaviour and ran
for 10 sessions, each session being 2 hours long. Programme content includes things such as
, structured exercises focusing on skills such as identifying provocations, cognitive restructuring
and relapse prevention.self report data was collected from both the control and experimental
group. Data about the ppts aggression was collected from two officers for the prison or a staff
member for those in the community based programme.effectiveness of the programme was
measured via multiple scales/questionnaires. For example the STAXI which measures anger
expression and control by distinguishing between state and trait anger. Another example is the
SCQ which measures motivation to change based on the transtheoretical model of change and is a
measure of treatment readiness.
Results;
● Overall, there were no statistically significant differences between the pre and post
treatment scores between the control and experimental group. There was a trend for
improvements over time, with the treatment group showing slightly higher
improvement.
● The results did show that prisoners who undertook the anger management programme
showed significantly greater improvement in anger knowledge than the prisoners in the
control group.
● The treatment group improved by 1.5 in controlling their anger compared to a 0.5
improvement for controls.
● Treatment group improved by 1.8 in their understanding of anger compared to a 0.95
increase for controls.
● The degree of improvement was found to be predictable from pretreatment measures of
anger and treatment readiness. The readiness scale proved to be a consistent predictor of
improvement. Offenders who were motivated to change and to work on their anger
problems showed the highest improvements on their anger measures.
Conclusion;
The results demonstrate that the overall impact of the anger management programme was small.
Whilst the experimental group made changes in the expected directions, there was no real
statistical significance. The extent of change in an individual was shown to be predictable to a
