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Updated: Oct 22, 2025
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Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
Published on: February 11, 2017
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Understanding Irritability in Relation to Anger, Aggression, and Informant in a Pediatric Clinical Population
Jodi Zik1, Christen M Deveney2, Jarrod M Ellingson3
1Pediatric Mental Health Institute, Children's Hospital Colorado, University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora.
Summary
Irritability in children is strongly linked to outward anger expression but distinct from aggression. Understanding these links can improve pediatric mental health interventions for anger and irritability.
Area of Science:
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- Behavioral Science
- Psychometrics
Background:
- Irritability is a key concern in pediatric mental health.
- The precise relationship between irritability, anger, and aggression requires clarification.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify the associations between irritability, anger, and aggression in children.
- To examine informant effects on these measures.
Main Methods:
- Multi-trait, multi-method factor analysis was used.
- 195 children (diagnosed with ADHD, DMDD, or no disorder) and their parents completed measures of irritability, anger, and aggression.
Main Results:
- Irritability and child-reported anger showed high association (r=0.89), particularly in outward anger expression.
- Aggression was less associated with both irritability (r=0.56) and anger (r=0.49).
- Informant source significantly contributed to response variance across measures.
Conclusions:
- Irritability is closely related to anger, especially outward expression, supporting its conceptualization as proneness to express anger.
- Interventions targeting anger expression may benefit children with irritability.
- Informant variance is a crucial factor to consider in clinical research and measurement.
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