Detecting random, partially random, and nonrandom Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 protocols.

The ability of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2; J. N. Butcher et al., 2001) validity scales to detect random, partially random, and nonrandom MMPI-2 protocols was investigated. Investigations included the Variable Response Inconsistency scale (VRIN), F, several potentially useful new F and VRIN subscales, and Fb - F ≥ 30 and Fb ≥ 90. Protocols completed by 150 adults participating in custody evaluations at a juvenile court setting, screened for randomness with a matched-pair Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (T. Millon, R. Davis, & C. Millon, 1997), were compared with 500 computer-generated all-random protocols and with three levels of partially random protocols. VRIN was the most effective scale in detecting uninterpretable random protocols; however, VRIN ≥ 80 failed to identify 37% of them. Fb - F ≥ 30 and Fb ≥ 90 misidentified 41% of the 50%-65% random protocols as partially interpretable. Using the new scales, a decision algorithm was described that correctly classified 97%-100% of the protocols as interpretable, partially interpretable, or uninterpretable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory scores and scores on certain scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.

"The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory was administered to two groups of… teachers at opposite extremes of the distribution of scores for the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory. Differences in mean scores of the two groups on the clerical scales of the MMPI, with and without the K correction and on 'subtle' and 'obvious' items scored separately, and differences in frequencies of different codings of profiles were analyzed." Several differences on MMPI scales between teachers scoring high on the MTAI and those scoring low on the MTAI seemed to be significant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Detection of back random responding: Effectiveness of MMPI-2 and Personality Assessment Inventory validity indices.

Two experiments examined the detection and effects of back random responding (BRR) on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) and the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI). Experiment 1 revealed that MMPI-2 Clinical and Content scales were relatively resistant to the effects of BRR. Fb--F ≥ 20T was the most effective index for identifying invalid protocols. Experiment 2 revealed greater susceptibility of the PAI interpretive scales to the effects of BRR and less successful detection of BRR. The most effective PAI validity index was the combined indicator, ICN ≥ at 73T or INF ≥ 75T. Clinical and empirical implications of these findings are discussed, and tentative modifications to the MMPI-2 interpretative guidelines are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule variables and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory scales.

Scores on the Edwards PPS and the MMPI were intercorrelated for a sample of 130 undergraduates (82 males, 48 females). Only five pairs of scores on the two instruments were substantially related to each other; in general, the PPS and the MMPI are fairly independent. However, "the significant and fairly substantial intercorrelations among many PPS variables suggest a reexamination of the relative independence that is claimed for the components of this inventory." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Set and content scores for personality scales and response styles in the MMPI.

Set and content scores from 3 MMPI scales, Edwards SD scale, the Manifest Anxiety scale (MA), and the Masculinity-Femininity (Mf) scale, were derived by an adaptation of the Helmstadter technique for obtaining separate (acquiescence) set and content scores from personality scales. In a factor analysis of scores for 150 male college Ss on 54 variables, the MA-Set and SD-Set variables defined a common factor, but only the Mf-Set variable loaded the 2nd, or acquiescence, factor. The inconsistency of these results indicated that the set formula was not consistently measuring, or reflecting, acquiescence, or any other construct, and furthermore suggested the need for caution in making acquiescence interpretations based on the Helmstadter procedure. Some speculations were advanced to account for the disparate results of the set variables, such as the degree of true-false and SD-SUD keying in the "parent" scales. A systematic variation of such scale keying in future research may indicate what the set procedure is measuring and have potential implications for the clarification of the nature of acquiescence in personality scales. (34 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Screening for malingering in a criminal-forensic sample with the Personality Assessment Inventory.

In this study, the authors examined how overreporting of psychopathology indices on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; L. C. Morey, 1991) performed as screening measures for malingering in a sample of 166 defendants undergoing pretrial court-ordered evaluations in the federal criminal justice system. Using results from the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS; R. Rogers, R. M. Bagby, & S. E. Dickens, 1992) as the criterion measure of malingering, the authors found that the Negative Impression scale (NIM) was the most effective PAI screening measure (cut score ≥ 81T). NIM performed as well as an established comparison measure from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory--2 (J. N. Butcher, W. G. Dahlstrom, J. R. Graham, A. Tellegen, & B. Kaemmer, 1989; Infrequency [F] cut score ≥ 95T), supporting the use of either of these indices as reasonable screening measures to identify potential malingerers for subsequent evaluation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Detecting back irrelevant responding on the Personality Assessment Inventory in a psychiatric inpatient setting.

The present studies focus on strategies for detecting back irrelevant responding (BIR) on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; L. C. Morey, 1991). Moderate BIR levels can greatly affect the clinical scales of the PAI. Further, the PAI's Inconsistency and Infrequency validity scales are less than optimal for detecting BIR. L. C. Morey and C. J. Hopwood (2004) developed an alternative strategy for detecting BIR that involves comparison of 2 scales from the PAI short-form with the same 2 scales from the PAI full-instrument. The present study examines how different BIR levels affect the clinical, treatment, and interpersonal scales of the PAI in 2 psychiatric inpatient samples. The effectiveness of various strategies for detecting BIR in an inpatient setting is also discussed. Consistent with previous research, moderate rates of BIR impacted several PAI scales in a meaningful way. The Inconsistency and Infrequency validity scales of the PAI were relatively ineffective for detecting low-to-moderate BIR levels. Conversely, the short-form full-instrument comparison strategy was much more sensitive to BIR. Finally, a new BIR detection indicator is presented that improves sensitivity rates for detecting all BIR levels in an acute setting. The implications of these results for detecting BIR in inpatient settings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Strategic, method, and stylistic variance in the MMPI.

"Strategic variance arises in the assessment of an S's communality with respect to a normative group on a dimension defined by contrast with a criterion group. Method variance is due to the idiosyncratic nature of the total item pool in regard to the proportion of true and false keyings and the distribution of item popularity values. (Stylistic variance includes dispositions to agree (acquiescence) or disagree (cautiousness) with neutral statements, independently of item content." In these terms, relevant research with the MMPI is reviewed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response sets and factor loadings on sixty-one personality scales.

Intercorrelations between 58 MMPI and 3 other personality scales, based upon the scores of 151 students, were factor analyzed and the factors rotated orthogonally. Loadings of the scales on the 1st factor correlated .90 with the proportion of items keyed for socially desirable responses and .98 with the zero-order correlations of the scales with the Social Desirability (SD) scale. The proportion of keyed True items correlated .82 with the loadings of the scales on the 2nd factor. The Lie and 3 other scales similar to the Lie scale had substantial loadings on the 3rd factor. The 1st factor is interpreted as reflecting the tendency to acquiesce, and the 3rd as reflecting the tendency to falsify answers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquiescence and the factorial interpretation of the MMPI.

Response set is a reliable phenomenon occurring with inventories using the true-false or agree-disagree format. Using the MMPI as an example of this type of inventory evidence is presented suggesting that the 2 major factors usually found for the MMPI may be rotated into positions interpretable as 2 response styles: the tendency to agree and the tendency to respond in a desirable way. Research should be concerned with how these stylistic consistencies are related to personality organization and psychopathology. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3HF99M. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Brain lesions and five MMPI items.

A 29-item scale was developed using 30 + 30 Ss and .05 level X2 values, for differentiating patients with CNS diseases from those without. Upon cross-validation, the scale differentiated too poorly for clinical use. The X2 values of 5 of the original 29 items towered above the others, and when these 5 were used with cross-validation groups, a cuttingpoint score of 4 on them differentiated above the .01 level of significance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquiescence and the vanishing variance component.

An experimental (reversal) group took both the MMPI and a reversed form of the MMPI. A control (reliability) group took the MMPI twice. All tests were scored on 67 scales, with keying reversed for the reversed MMPI. Only trivial proportions of the response variance were found to be attributable to acquiescence for any of the uniformly keyed scales employed. Included were the scales most often suggested as measures of acquiescence: A, R, B, Bn, Rb, Acq, At, Dy-3, Deviant True, Deviant False, and Total True. Conclusion: acquiescence is an unimportant determinant of MMPI responses, including responses to items on "acquiescence" scales. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response to Drs. Horvath and Fekken.

Responds to comments by P. Horvath (see record 2007-09683-001) and G. C. Fekken (see record 2007-09684-001) on the current authors' original article entitled The Research Base, Psychometric Properties and Clinical Uses of the MMPI-2 (see record 1992-25725-001). Horvath and Fekken have made a substantial contribution to the evolution of MMPI-based assessment by providing thoughtful evaluations of key issues in the revision. We appreciate both their endorsement of the improved aspects as well as the questions and critiques they skillfully raise. In the limited space allotted to us, we will try to respond to the major issues. Both Horvath and Fekken, while noting the ways in which MMPI-2 improves the original instrument, point out apparent deficiencies in the original instrument that were not eliminated. The current authors contend that regardless of its psychometric ugliness and somewhat archaic aspects, the MMPI has worked extremely well as a screening instrument for psychopathology. Second, Fekken raises an important concern about the validity of the MMPI-2. Two published studies are cited to debate this critique. Third, Fekken cites the work of Duckworth which reports apparent "differences" between the profiles of some participants who took both the original and revised MMPI. Unfortunately, Duckworth's report fails to address a fundamental prerequisite of experimental design: the test-retest variable. Fourth, Horvath, in his critique of the original MMPI, questions validity generalization. However, the cited research did not study the original MMPI instrument but rather an abbreviated derivation or approximation of the test, the Minimult, which utilizes only 81 of the original MMPI items. Fifth, both Horvath and Fekken note that there are additional aspects about the revision process, the psychometric properties, and the applicability of the MMPI-2 that were not addressed in our original article. These are significant issues that deserve a much more detailed response than we can render in this brief response. However, these issues have been and continue to be addressed in the research literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Efficiency of a Strategy for Detecting Back Random Responding on the Personality Assessment Inventory.

The efficiency of a new strategy to identify back random responding (BRR) on the Personality Assessment Inventory (L. C. Morey, 1991) was studied using random manipulations of item responses from community (904 adult nonpatients) and clinical (1,079 adult patients) respondents. The strategy involved a comparison of short-form and full-instrument T scores on 2 scales found to be particularly sensitive to BRR in a recent study. This strategy was found to be reasonably sensitive and specific to even relatively low levels of BRR. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Detecting symptom exaggeration in combat veterans using the MMPI–2 symptom validity scales: A mixed group validation.

Although validity scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2; J. N. Butcher, W. G. Dahlstrom, J. R. Graham, A. Tellegen, & B. Kaemmer, 1989) have proven useful in the detection of symptom exaggeration in criterion-group validation (CGV) studies, usually comparing instructed feigners with known patient groups, the application of these scales has been problematic when assessing combat veterans undergoing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) examinations. Mixed group validation (MGV) was employed to determine the efficacy of MMPI–2 exaggeration scales in compensation-seeking (CS) and noncompensation-seeking (NCS) veterans. Unlike CGV, MGV allows for a mix of exaggerating and nonexaggerating individuals in each group, does not require that the exaggeration versus nonexaggerating status of any individual be known, and can be adjusted for different base-rate estimates. MMPI–2 responses of 377 male veterans were examined according to CS versus NCS status. MGV was calculated using 4 sets of base-rate estimates drawn from the literature. The validity scales generally performed well (adequate sensitivity, specificity, and efficiency) under most base-rate estimations, and most produced cutoff scores that showed adequate detection of symptom exaggeration, regardless of base-rate assumptions. These results support the use of MMPI–2 validity scales for PTSD evaluations in veteran populations, even under varying base rates of symptom exaggeration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Incremental validity of selected MMPI-A content scales in an inpatient setting.

To date, relatively few studies have been published evaluating the validity or incremental validity of the content scales from the adolescent version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-A; J. N. Butcher et al., 1992). A sample of 629 psychiatric inpatient adolescents who had completed the MMPI-A was used to evaluate the ability of selected clinical and content scales to predict conceptually related clinical variables. Criteria were based on clinician ratings, admission and discharge diagnoses, and chart reviews. Results from hierarchical multiple and logistic regression analyses indicated the content scales offered incremental validity over the clinical scales and supported the use of the content scales as an adjunct to the traditional clinical scales. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquiescence, hypontic susceptibility, and the MMPI.

The rather discouraging results of using standard personality inventories in attempts to predict hypnosis have been the subject of recent reviews. This is a report on one Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) measure (the Sum-True score) that has yielded a small but significant correlation with hypnosis for both male and female subjects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing gender role of partner-violent men using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2): Comparing abuser types.

This study investigated traditional masculine gender role differences between male partner abuser types using the Masculinity/Femininity subsection scales of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) Structural Summary. We examined differences between four groups of partner-violent men (borderline, antisocial, psychotic features, and nonpathological partner violent) and one group of nonpartner-violent men on five MMPI-2 subscales: Masculinity-Femininity, Gender Role-Feminine, Gender Role-Masculine, Ego Inflation, and Low Self-esteem. Results indicated that the borderline group reported the most consistent traditional feminine gender role orientation of all the groups, whereas the antisocial group reported the most consistent traditional masculine gender role orientation of all the groups. The psychotic features group reported characteristics associated with both traditional masculinity and traditional feminine gender role making it distinct among all the groups. The nonpathological intimately violent group and the nonpartner-violent group reported no extreme scores when compared with the other three groups. The borderline and antisocial groups reported significantly more exposure to family of origin violence and use of more severe forms of partner abuse than the other three partner abuse groups. Treatment implications are addressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Forensic questions and answers on the MMPI/MMPI-2.

Reviews the book, Forensic questions and answers on the MMPI/MMPI-2 by Alex B. Caldwell (see record 1997-36431-000). Whether voluntarily or not, psychologists are being drawn professionally into the legal world more and more, and this text by Caldwell is a powerful light for those headed into the tunnel. Other works on the forensic use of the MMPI and MMPI-2 have consistently started from the view of the court: what does the court need to know from personality assessment and what parts of that need can tests such as the MMPI answer? Starting from the MMPI rather than from the perspective of the court, Caldwell has provided a brief and concise set of answers as to what the MMPI can demonstrate—what questions can be asked of the MMPI, and what answers does it potentially provide. This book is entirely in a question-and-answer format. Each chapter poses a series of questions with answers that range from one paragraph to two or three pages. Caldwell asserts that he wrote the book for attorneys as well as psychologists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)