"Clinical comparability of the standard MMPI and the MMPI-168": Correction to Hart, McNeill, Lutz, and Adkins.

Reports an error in "Clinical comparability of the standard MMPI and the MMPI-168" by Ronald R. Hart, John W. McNeill, David J. Lutz and Thomas G. Adkins (Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 1986[Jun], Vol 17[3], 269-272). In this article, the copyright information was incorrect. The corrected copyright information is included in the erratum. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1986-26219-001.) Examined the clinical correspondence of the full-scale Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the MMPI-168 on a psychiatric screening sample of 210 men (mean age 43.27 yrs). The present results fail to replicate previous optimistic findings regarding the worth of the MMPI-168 and accent the need for caution in any further use of this abbreviated instrument. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical limitations of three Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory short forms.

Compared 3 MMPI short forms, the Mini-Mult, T. Faschingbauer's 166, and the MMPI-168, which were constructed by different methodologies, using 1,028 male psychiatric patients as Ss. Although the short- to standard-form correlations for all 3 short forms were generally high (ranging from .74 to .96 for the MMPI scales), the success in accurately predicting the code type was quite low. The hit rates in predicting to the 58 code types used in the study were 36.7% for the Mini-Mult, 40.4% for the MMPI-168, and 49.4% for Faschingbauer's 166 form. An analysis of false positive and false negative test misses showed further weaknesses in MMPI short forms. Results question the use of MMPI short forms for clinical interpretation based on usual profile interpretation procedures (code-type analysis). (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of MMPI short forms with psychiatric patients.

Compared the use of 2 MMPI short forms, the MMPI-168 and the Mini-Mult, with the complete MMPI using 2,721 psychiatric inpatients and 634 outpatients. Estimated Full Scale MMPI scores for both short forms showed very high relationships with actual Full Scale scores, and the degree of profile agreement for the 3 highest scales was also quite high, although comparisons of the MMPI-168 and Mini-Mult demonstrated a number of significant differences which affect profile interpretation. (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)     

Selecting a short form of the MMPI: Addendum to Faschingbauer.

T. R. Faschingbauer (1976) offered guidelines to clinicians in the selection of MMPI short forms as substitutes for the full MMPI. This comment offers an addendum to Faschingbauer in the form of a review of empirical studies of the clinical validity of MMPI short forms and a discussion of the MMPI-168, which was not considered in Faschingbauer's earlier article. For diagnostic and interpretive accuracy, the empirical evidence to date seems to favor 2 short forms—the Faschingbauer Abbreviated MMPI and the MMPI-168—over the other available short forms. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of the MMPI-168 to outcome of a pain management program at long-term follow-up.

Evaluated a shorter form of the MMPI, the MMPI-168, as a predictor of long-term outcome (6 mo to 3 yrs postdischarge) of an inpatient pain management program involving 40 chronic pain patients. Rules for both standard-scale and factor-scale interpretations correctly identified 79% of pain program "successes" and "failures." Results provide support for the MMPI-168 as a brief, useful measure of personality functioning in a physical medicine setting. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A perspective on developments in assessing psychopathology: A critical review of the MMPI and MMPI-2.

Many concerns have been raised about the MMPI, but the emphasis on continuity during its revision precluded addressing many of these problems in the new MMPI-2. In this review, problems with the MMPI and MMPI-2 are explicated in an effort to promote more informed use of this and other tests of psychopathology. Major theoretical concerns include the lack of a consistent measurement model, heterogeneous scale content, and suspect diagnostic criteria. Serious structural problems include the overlap among scales, lack of cross-validation of the scoring keys, inadequacy of measures of response styles, and suspect norms. Six minor problems and new issues for the MMPI-2 are also discussed. It is concluded that although the MMPI-2 is an improvement over the MMPI, both are suboptimal from the perspective of modern psychometric standards for the assessment of psychopathology. (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)     

A comparison of three MMPI short forms: Limited clinical utility in classification.

A multivariate classification method was used to compare the Mini-Mult, Faschingbauer Abbreviated MMPI, and MMPI-168 with the standard MMPI profiles of 252 psychiatric inpatients (mean age 27.4 yrs). Profiles were classified as 1 of 3 previous identified superordinate types (neurotic, psychotic, and sociopathic), using the standard MMPI profile as a criterion. Overall classification was below clinical utility, with distortions of profile shape the most serious error. No form was judged to be adequate for most clinical purposes. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adequacy of a translation of the MMPI into American Sign Language for use with deaf individuals: Linguistic equivalency issues.

Translated the MMPI into American Sign Language (ASL) via the back-translation procedure and recorded it on videotape to determine the linguistic equivalency of a sign language translation of a psychological test for use with deaf individuals. The bilingual retest technique was conducted whereby both forms of the instrument were administered to 28 ASL-English bilingual deaf Ss. Due to the advent of the MMPI-2 during the conduct of this study, a new set of T scores was calculated from the present MMPI data to compare the effect of shifting to the MMPI-2 norms. The results demonstrate adequate linguistic equivalencies of the ASL MMPI items and underscore the potential utility and practicality of future ASL translations of psychological tests for use with deaf individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

MMPI and MMPI-2 performance of the Chinese: Cross-cultural applicability.

Psychologists are being increasingly asked to evaluate culturally diverse individuals, and it is critical that assessment instruments be appropriately adapted to the populations being evaluated. Chinese Americans have been underrepresented in the normative samples of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI; S. R. Hathaway & J. C. McKinley, 1983) and the revised MMPI (MMPI-2; J. N. Butcher, W. G. Dahlstrom, J. R. Graham, A. Tellegan, & B. Kaemmer, 1989), and research with exclusive Chinese samples in the United States is lacking. Adaptability studies of the Chinese MMPI in Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China, however, have demonstrated the instrument's clinical utility. In this article, MMPI and MMPI-2 studies with Chinese are reviewed. Implications of the instrument's applicability to Chinese in the United States are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical comparability of the standard MMPI and the MMPI-168.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 17(5) of Professional Psychology: Research and Practice (see record 2008-10955-002). In this article, the copyright information was incorrect. The corrected copyright information is included in the erratum.] Examined the clinical correspondence of the full-scale Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the MMPI-168 on a psychiatric screening sample of 210 men (mean age 43.27 yrs). The present results fail to replicate previous optimistic findings regarding the worth of the MMPI-168 and accent the need for caution in any further use of this abbreviated instrument. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison of standard and abbreviated MMPIs in patients with head injury.

Examined the potential utility of several short-form versions of the standard Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) for patients with head injury. These included the Mini-Mult, Midi-Mult, Maxi-Mult, and the abbreviated MMPI by T. R. Faschingbauer (see record 1975-03125-001), the abbreviated MMPI by J. A. Hugo (1971), and the MMPI-168. The sample studied consisted of 95 males (mean age 27.2 yrs) and 30 females (mean age 27.5 yrs). A standard MMPI was administered at approximately 6.5 mo postinjury in both groups. Significant multivariate profile differences (based on T-scores) were found between the standard MMPI and each individual short-form. Scales on the short-forms showed generally good correlations between themselves and the standard MMPI scales, and T-score means were quite similar in most cases. However, further analysis of individual cases demonstrated relatively poorer correspondence between the standard MMPI and the short-form versions with regard to profile validity, high-point, and 2-point code type. None of the MMPI short-forms examined appeared to be a suitable alternative to the standard MMPI in patients with head injury. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinicians' perceptions of the comparability of the MMPI and MMPI-2.

Determined whether experienced MMPI users perceive the MMPI and MMPI-2 as yielding clinically comparable results. Clinical psychologists (N?=?35) reviewed pairs of MMPI and MMPI-2 profiles derived from the same test responses and estimated that 92–96% of their diagnoses and 89–93% of their narrative interpretations would be essentially the same or only slightly different from one version of the instrument to the other, whereas only 0–3% of either their diagnoses or reports would be quite different. MMPI-2 profiles with poorly defined code types were likely to be viewed as somewhat different or quite different from the MMPI. Low-ranging MMPI-2 profiles were most apt to be poorly defined and, correspondingly, most likely to be viewed as different from the MMPI. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An improvement in the statistical validity of the MMPI-168 through modified scoring.

Standard Form R keys from the MMPI, when applied to the MMPI-168, fail to score all items on all scales. In the present research, the MMPIs of 100 male VA hospital alcoholics were rescored to include this missing information. The results indicate that this modified scoring procedure substantially improves the correlation between short-form and full-scale scores for the Paranoia and Schizophrenia scales. The importance of considering the scoring of repeated items when investigating other short forms by the "extraction" method was also noted. (1 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An application of methods for clustered binary responses to a cardiovascular study with small sample size

Many clinicians have come to rely on the broad array of validity scales available on the MMPI and the MMPI-2. In this study, we evaluated the utility of 2 MMPI-2 validity scales, the K scale and VRIN scale, in a sample of 692 psychiatric inpatients. Specifically, the effects of the K-correction procedure and the exclusion of protocols based on VRIN scale elevations were examined on the relation between MMPI-2 basic clinical scales and external criteria including both self-report and clinician ratings of psychopathology. Results indicated that the K-correction procedure commonly used with the MMPI and MMPI-2 did not result in higher correlations with external criteria in comparison to non-K-corrected scores. In contrast, MMPI-2 protocols that produced VRIN T-score values > or = 80 generally produced lower correlations with patients self-reports and clinician ratings of psychopathology in comparison to protocols judged to be valid based on VRIN scale results.     

Equivalence of the MMPI-2 with the MMPI in psychiatric patients.

Psychiatric patients were administered the MMPI, its revision (MMPI-2), or both, in a counterbalanced repeated-measures design. MMPI-2 T scores were found to be significantly lower than MMPI T scores on several of the clinical scales. S rank order on T scores and dispersion of the basic clinical scales did not differ between the tests, and measures of profile similarity indicated congruence between the 2 instruments. Among Ss who completed both the MMPI and the MMPI-2, code-type concordance was not significantly lower than stability rates of the tests. Results support the assignment of 65T as the lower boundary of clinical elevation on the MMPI-2 and the psychometric equivalence of the MMPI-2 and the MMPI with respect to mean T scores, score rankings, and measures of score distribution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of the MMPI-2 With Asian Populations.

Psychological tests developed in the United States are being widely adapted into other languages and cultures around the world. This article examines the generalizability and utility of personality assessment instruments across cultures and addresses methodological issues related to using personality questionnaires in countries different from the one in which they were developed. This article specifically highlights the application of objective psychological tests in Asia with special emphasis on the most widely used and internationally adapted personality instrument, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2). Effective strategies for translating, adapting, and standardizing questionnaires in languages and cultures different from their country of origin are reviewed. The history of several successful adaptations of the original MMPI and MMPI-2 is surveyed to illustrate the extensive research base for the test in Asia. Current research is summarized, and recommendations for future research are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Methodological problems and issues in MMPI, MMPI-2, and MMPI-A research.

Personality questionnaires are among the most versatile and user-friendly approaches to personality assessment. This article focuses on methodological considerations in conducting research on the MMPI-2, the most widely used clinical personality instrument. The article addresses ways of identifying methodological problems in research and alerts researchers to potential pitfalls in conducting personality assessment research. The topics addressed include the following: methodological factors addressing the continuity of the MMPI-2 and the original MMPI; sample selection in MMPI-2 research; issues concerning test administration; the application of exclusionary criteria in developing research samples; methodological factors in processing, reporting, and analyzing data; developing and evaluating new MMPI-2 scales; and assessing test bias in personality research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The comparative validities of the Rorschach and MMPI: A meta-analysis.

A meta-analysis comparing "undirected" and "conceptual" MMPI studies, and conceptual Rorschach and MMPI studies, indicated the following conclusions, (a) Conceptual work more successfully validates an assessment instrument than does undirected investigation, (b) The validatory success of the "average" conceptual Rorschach study is comparable to that of similar MMPI work. This finding suggests that the former's questionable status may be based on sociocultural factors, rather than scientific ones, (c) The "average" conceptual Rorschach or MMPI study has only modest explanatory power, (d) Investigators' misuse of X2 has resulted in exaggerated effect size in many instances where the statistic was employed. It is suggested that future research be judged on the coherence of its inference processes, the specificity of its predictions, and the amount of variance it explains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)