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People can respond to psychological items differently based on how items are presented. Gender differences on anxiety and stress have been documented when items are written using positive versus negative wording formats. One limitation of item wording research is whether differences are due to wording or differences in constructs when positive and negative items are not matched on content. In this study, ten items from the Zung (1971) Anxiety Scale were selected, and ten items were created to be the reverse wording of the original items. The purpose was to investigate the functioning of reverse-worded items for males and females of different age groups.

A volunteer sample of 2,540 adults was collected. Data were disaggregated by gender and age. Differential bundle functioning analyses were conducted using POLY-SIBTEST with ten positively worded items used as the matching subtest to compare responses on ten negatively worded items (5 point scale). When women were matched with men, there was no significant difference on negatively worded items (b_uni = 0.070, p = .702). Neither were there gender differences across age categories. However, when adults were compared by age, older adults were significantly less likely than young adults to agree with negatively worded anxiety items.

To better understand the differences, women in three age groups were compared and results indicated significant differences between all comparisons (b_uni = 0.554, p = .003 for 18-39 versus 40-59 years; b_uni = 0.686, p = .005 for 40-59 versus 60 years and older; b_uni = 1.030, p < .001 for 18-39 versus 60 years and older). The same age-related trend was observed for males, with the youngest males significantly more likely to agree with negative items than the oldest males (b_uni = 1.026, p = .003). Results indicate that previous gender studies on anxiety scales may be confounded by age.