Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale TMAS
Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale TMAS overview
Creator and Context
The Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (TMAS) measures anxiety as a personality trait rather than as a current symptom state.
It was developed by Janet Taylor and published in 1953, with items drawn from the MMPI item pool. It is a historical instrument, and it was designed to identify high and low trait anxiety groups for experimental research rather than to screen for a disorder.
Presenting Conditions
The TMAS measures manifest, trait level anxiety as a single construct. There are no subscales.
Administration
Self administered in ten to fifteen minutes, with no training requirement. Items are answered true or false. There is no recall window, because it measures a trait rather than a state.
Desired Audience
Adults. A children's version, the CMAS, was published separately.
The TMAS is a piece of psychology's history rather than a contemporary clinical tool. Where it still earns its place is in research continuity, or where a service has a long running dataset built on it.
Considerations
No official cut offs exist. Taylor used the scale to select high and low anxiety groups for experiments, not to make clinical decisions. Any banded thresholds circulating online are unsourced.
Multiple versions of the TMAS circulate with different item counts. Always state which version is in use.
It is over seventy years old. The item wording is dated and there are no contemporary norms.
It measures trait anxiety, not disorder, and it has been superseded in clinical practice by the GAD-7, the STAI, the BAI and the HADS.
Its items were derived from the MMPI, which is separately copyrighted. Commercial reuse should be legally reviewed.
How to score the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale TMAS
Conducting the assessment
The person answers each item true or false. One point is scored for each anxiety keyed response.
Interpretation
Anxiety keyed responses are summed to give a total. Higher scores indicate greater trait anxiety.
There are no official cut offs and no publisher endorsed severity bands. Interpretation is relative: comparison within a sample, or between groups.
Because the item count differs between circulating versions, the maximum score depends on which version is in use.
Clinical Considerations
Do not band the score. No validated thresholds exist.
State which version you are using, because they are not comparable.
For contemporary clinical screening, use a modern instrument. The TMAS is a historical measure.
Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale TMAS use cases
Measuring trait anxiety
Research continuity where the TMAS has been used historically
Identifying high and low trait anxiety groups
Category
Anxiety
Research Summary
Taylor, J. A. (1953). A personality scale of manifest anxiety. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 48(2), 285 to 290.
Bendig, A. W. (1956). The development of a short form of the Manifest Anxiety Scale. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 20(5), 384.
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