Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS)

Abstract

The Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS) is a highly influential and widely utilized self-report inventory designed for the objective measurement of chronic, manifest anxiety levels in children and adolescents. Serving as a crucial refinement of its precursor, the Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (CMAS), the RCMAS is applicable to individuals ranging in age from 6 to 19 years.

The complete scale comprises 37 items, which are structured to assess both anxiety symptoms and the respondent’s defensive posture. The resulting scores include a total manifest anxiety score and dimensional scores across specific facets of anxiety experience. Due to its ease of administration and robust psychometric properties, the RCMAS remains a cornerstone tool for mental health professionals and researchers engaged in effective screening, assessment of symptom severity, and monitoring of therapeutic progress across diverse clinical and educational settings.

Keywords

RCMAS, Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale, CMAS, pediatric anxiety, adolescent anxiety, manifest anxiety, psychological assessment, self-report, clinical screening, defensiveness scale, response bias.

Authors

Cecil R. Reynolds, Bert O. Richmond

Purpose

The fundamental purpose of the RCMAS is to deliver a quick, reliable, and psychometrically valid assessment of the intensity and nature of manifest anxiety experienced by children and adolescents. It is specifically calibrated to differentiate between youth exhibiting clinically elevated levels of anxiety and those within the normative range, thereby facilitating early identification and timely intervention.

In clinical and school environments, the RCMAS is employed for multiple advanced assessment goals. These include establishing quantifiable baseline measurements of anxiety severity, tracking longitudinal changes in symptomatology over time, and providing objective data to evaluate the efficacy of psychological, behavioral, or pharmacological treatments aimed at reducing anxiety symptoms.

Construct

The RCMAS is designed to measure the psychological construct of Manifest Anxiety, which is defined as the chronic, discernible, and subjective constellation of cognitive distress (worry), emotional arousal, and physiological symptoms. The instrument’s 37 items are organized into a multi-dimensional structure assessing four principal factors, three of which pertain to anxiety and one dedicated to measuring response bias or defensiveness:

• Physiological Anxiety: This factor captures the physical manifestations of anxiety, including somatic complaints, respiratory difficulties, dizziness, or disruptions in sleep patterns.
• Worry/Oversensitivity: This component addresses cognitive anxiety, characterized by excessive rumination, generalized worry, and heightened sensitivity to external feedback or perceived social threats.
• Social Concerns/Concentration Anxiety: This factor measures anxiety specifically related to social performance, peer interactions, and difficulties sustaining focus, particularly in academic or structured settings.
• Lie Scale (Defensiveness): Dedicated items assess the child’s propensity toward socially desirable responding or the denial of minor, universally accepted faults, which is critical for determining the overall validity of the self-report data.

Validity

Since its inception, the RCMAS has consistently demonstrated strong evidence of validity across a wide range of academic and clinical investigations. Its utility is supported by its ability to effectively discriminate between clinical and non-clinical populations (a measure of criterion validity) and its significant correlation with other established instruments that measure anxiety and internalizing disorders (concurrent validity).

Crucially, construct validity is robustly supported through factor analysis, which confirms that the items successfully load onto the hypothesized anxiety dimensions (Physiological, Worry/Oversensitivity, and Social Concerns/Concentration). The scale exhibits appropriate sensitivity and specificity, affirming its standing as a powerful and trustworthy tool for identifying children who may require further clinical evaluation for potential anxiety disorders.

Reliability

The RCMAS is widely acknowledged for its high reliability in pediatric populations. Reliability assessments, including measures of internal consistency (e.g., Cronbach’s alpha coefficients) and test-retest reliability, consistently report high coefficients for both the total anxiety score and the three primary anxiety subscales.

This consistent psychometric performance ensures that the results are stable across administrations over time (temporal stability) and that all items within a specific subscale are coherently measuring the same underlying construct (internal consistency). Such high reliability is foundational for clinical applications, particularly when monitoring long-term treatment effectiveness and documenting changes in a child’s anxiety level.

Factor Analysis

The factor analysis of the RCMAS confirms a clear, multi-dimensional structure of manifest anxiety, which is statistically distinct from the factor measuring defensiveness. The total pool of 37 items is systematically distributed across four primary factors.

The definitive structure established by Reynolds and Richmond allocates the items into three anxiety subscales totaling 28 items, and one Lie Scale comprised of 9 items:

• Physiological Anxiety: 9 items (1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, 29, and 33).
• Worry/Oversensitivity: 10 items (2, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, 30, 34, and 37).
• Social Concerns/Concentration Anxiety: 9 items (3, 7, 11, 15, 19, 23, 27, 31, and 35).
• Lie Scale (Defensiveness): 9 items (4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, and 36).

The core measure of manifest anxiety is calculated by summing the scores from the three anxiety subscales. The distinct Lie Scale score is crucial for evaluating the potential influence of response bias or misreporting on the overall validity of the respondent’s anxiety profile.

Instrument

Test Type: Psychological scale; Self-report inventory

Format: Paper-and-pencil or computer administration; 37 items (Yes/No or Likert format).

Language Available: English (translations and adapted versions are often available depending on the distributor).

Population Group: Children and adolescents.

Age Group: 6 to 19 years.

Population Details: Utilized across clinical, school, and research settings with typically developing children and those presenting with internalizing disorders, such as generalized anxiety.

Test Methodology: The scale is commonly scored using a 3-point Likert scale (0 = “not true”, 1 = “sometimes true”, and 2 = “true”). Note that some earlier or adapted versions may employ a simple binary (Yes/No) response format. A higher total score is indicative of a greater level of manifest anxiety. The Lie Scale is scored and interpreted separately to assess for potential response invalidity or defensiveness.

Keywords

manifest anxiety, children, adolescents, RCMAS, psychometric assessment, worry, physiological symptoms, internalizing disorders, Lie Scale, screening tool, clinical psychology.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not publicly available or standardized for this historical publication.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not available.

Correspondence Address: Western Psychological Services (Publisher), Los Angeles, CA.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS) is a proprietary psychological instrument managed and published by Western Psychological Services (WPS). Consequently, formal permissions, licensing, and usage fees are mandatory for the administration, scoring, and utilization of the testing materials. The initial revision (RCMAS) was formally introduced in 1978, with a comprehensive, updated manual subsequently published in 1994.

An early academic discussion of the instrument can be found on page 8 of the manuscript, “Factor Structure and Construct Validity of “What I Think and Feel”: The Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale,” available online. The original PDF can be downloaded here: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED174626.pdf

Reference’s

• Reynolds, C. R., & Richmond, B. O. (1978). What I Think and Feel: A Revised measure of Children’s Manifest Anxiety. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 6, 271–280.
• Reynolds, C. R., & Richmond, B. O. (1994). Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS) Manual. Western Psychological Services, Los Angeles.

Items of the Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. I have trouble making up my mind.
2. I get nervous when things do not go the right way for me.
3. Others seem to do things easier than I can.
4. I like everyone I know. (Lie Scale)
5. Often I have trouble getting my breath.
6. I worry a lot of the time.
7. I am afraid of a lot of things.
8. I am always kind. (Lie Scale)
9. I get mad easily.
10. I worry about what my parents will say to me.
11. I feel others do not like the way I do things.
12. I always have good manners. (Lie Scale)
13. It is hard for me to get to sleep at night.
14. I worry about what other people will think of me.
15. I feel alone even when there are people with me.
16. I am always good. (Lie Scale)
17. Often I feel sick in my stomach.
18. My feelings get hurt easily.
19. My hands feel sweaty.
20. I am always nice to everyone. (Lie Scale)
21. I am tired a lot.
22. I worry about what is going to happen.
23. Other children are happier than I.
24. I tell the truth every single time. (Lie Scale)
25. I have bad dreams.
26. My feelings get hurt easily when I am fussed at.
27. I feel someone will tell me I do things the wrong way.
28. I never get angry. (Lie Scale)
29. I wake up scared some of the time.
30. I worry when I go to bed at night.
31. It is hard for me to keep my mind on my school work.
32. I never say things I shouldn’t. (Lie Scale)
33. I wiggle in my seat a lot.
34. I am nervous.
35. A lot of people are against me.
36. I never lie. (Lie Scale)
37. I often worry about something bad happening to me.