Automated scoring of the Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire using fine-tuned large language models

Abstract: Hostile attribution bias is the tendency to interpret social interactions as intentionally hostile. The Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire (AIHQ) is commonly used to measure hostile attribution bias, and includes open-ended questions where participants describe the perceived intentions behind a negative social situation and how they would respond. While these questions provide insights into the contents of hostile attributions, they require time-intensive scoring by human raters. In this study, we assessed whether LLMs can automate the scoring of AIHQ open-ended responses. We used a previously collected dataset in which individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and healthy controls (HC) completed the AIHQ and had their open-ended responses rated by trained human raters. We used half of these responses to fine-tune the two models on human-generated ratings, and tested the fine-tuned models on the remaining half of AIHQ responses. Results showed that model-generated ratings aligned with human ratings for both attributions of hostility and aggression responses, with fine-tuned models showing higher alignment. This alignment was consistent across ambiguous, intentional, and accidental scenario types, and replicated previous findings on group differences in attributions of hostility and aggression responses between TBI and HC groups. The fine-tuned models also generalized well to an independent nonclinical dataset. To support broader adoption, we provide an accessible scoring interface that includes both local and cloud-based options. Together, our findings suggest that LLMs can streamline AIHQ scoring in both research and clinical contexts, revealing their potential to facilitate psychological assessments across different populations.