BARQ, Behavioral Anger Response Questionnaire

Available in Dutch and English.

The BARQ was originally developed for adults (Linden et al, 2003) with the aim of capturing a more comprehensive view of anger coping than the traditional anger-in, anger-out and anger-control distinction. Two of the six BARQ coping strategies, Direct Anger-out and Avoidance, are similar to the anger-out/anger-in strategies in that they represent ‘extreme’ strategies of aggression on the one hand and passivity/suppression on the other. In addition, three moderate or adaptive response styles are included; Assertion refers to the ability to constructively express one’s anger or solve the angering event, Diffusion involves deflecting the anger to another stimulus or activity, and Social support-seeking describes finding support from a friend or relative. The sixth BARQ strategy, Rumination, taps the tendency to cope with one’s anger by repeatedly deliberating over its cause (Linden et al., 2003). The adapted version for children is termed BARQ-C and has demonstrated good internal consistency and acceptable construct validity. The adapted English and Dutch versions of the BARQ-C ask children and adolescents to rate a total of 37 items, on a Likert scale, stating the degree to which each item is true about them when feeling angry (1 = not true, 2 = sometimes true, 3 = often true).
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Miers, A.C., Rieffe, C., Meerum Terwogt, M., Cowan, R. & Linden, W. (2007). The relation between anger coping strategies, anger mood and somatic complaints in children and adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 35, 653-664.