A hostility measure for use in family contexts.

A modification of the Gottschalk-Gleser standardized instructions for eliciting speech samples was developed and tested in ongoing family studies. This modification, the Wynne-Gift technique, allows the interviewer to focus on the speaker's relationships with various family members. The usefulness and validity of the approach was assessed in a study of differences in attitudes toward the husband of 10 separated or divorced women as compared to the attitudes of 11 married women. Significant differences were found in the expected direction between mean hostility outward scores as well as hostility toward the spouse or ex-spouse of these two groups of women. The range of applications of this modification of eliciting speech samples is discussed.