Cook-Medley Hostility Scale (CMHS) Test

People who want to examine recurring irritability, mistrust, and antagonistic reactions may find the Cook-Medley Hostility Scale (CMHS) Test useful for organizing reactions to conflict, trust, and interpersonal friction. The resulting hostility profile helps readers consider how they interpret other people’s motives, respond to friction, and manage resentment. Results describe tendencies rather than fixed character traits, helping the reader consider patterns that may change with context.

What This Assessment Explores

The items focus on tension, provocation, judgments about others’ motives, and reactions when boundaries or principles feel challenged. They suit self-reflection about relationships and conflict, with results describing recurring attitudes rather than labeling the whole personality.

The profile separates these dimensions:

• Hostility (6-30) is intended to measure internal tension, negative affect, and unfriendliness; Low 6-10, Average 11-17, and High 18-30 are the displayed bands.
• Aggressiveness (9-54) is intended to measure aggression in behavior and relationships; Low 9-15, Moderate 16-29, and High 30-54 are the displayed bands.
• Cynicism (13-78) is intended to measure distrust, suspiciousness, and negative perceptions of others; Low cynicism 13-39, Moderate cynicism 40-65, and High cynicism 66-78 are the displayed bands.

Reading your hostility test results alongside recent situations can clarify familiar reactions. A higher band may indicate a stronger tendency, not every interaction.

Methodology and Scientific Basis

Each statement is answered with one of six frequency choices that generally run from Usually or Often to Rarely or Never; middle labels vary between items. The items cover opinions, interpersonal expectations, irritation, retaliation, and moral judgments. The questionnaire reports three displayed scores and places each within its stated range and band; the range alone does not reveal how any answer contributes.

The Cook-Medley Hostility Scale provides a published comparison for hostile attitudes and is an MMPI-derived measure. This online questionnaire is conceptually consistent with it, but it is not a documented adaptation or equivalent form of that instrument. Research on the published scale’s item content and multidimensionality provides context for these themes, but findings from those samples do not validate this questionnaire or its displayed bands.

For Cook-Medley scale interpretation, consider mood, recent conflict, defensiveness, social desirability, and limited self-awareness when reviewing the profile. The displayed bands are result categories for this questionnaire, not established normative or clinical thresholds; honest self-report and current context can affect the picture.