Comparison of the Wiener-Harmon Subtle-Obvious scales and the standard validity scales in detecting valid and invalid MMPI-2 profiles.

The validity of the Wiener-Harmon Subtle–Obvious (S-O) scales has been widely debated despite increasing evidence suggesting that the scales have limited clinical utility. This study used valid Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) profiles of 49 psychiatric patients and profiles generated by 105 college students under fake-bad, fake-good, and standard instructions to examine whether the S-O scales can correctly classify faked and honest profiles. The S-O scales correctly classified high percentages of profiles, but further analyses showed that they added no information to that provided by L and F in classifying fake-bad, fake-good, and honest profiles. But other analyses showed that L and F provided substantial information not given by the S-O scales. The study also observed the paradoxical effect under the fake-good instructions and reported evidence suggesting that a naysaying response bias is a cogent explanation of the effect. The authors concluded that the standard validity scales appear to be more useful than the S-O scales in identifying faked profiles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)