MMPI Items Research Articles

Associations between MMPI-2-RF (Restructured Form) and Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI) Scale Scores in a Law Enforcement Preemployment Screening Sample

The MMPI-2 is widely used in assessments of police officer candidates. The MMPI-2-RF, composed of 338 of the 567 MMPI-2 items, is designed to measure the core clinical constructs assessed by the MMPI-2, but in a more psychometrically sound and efficient manner (Ben-Porath and Tellegen 2008/2011). Law enforcement comparison group data are embedded in the scoring software for the inventory, and reported in the User’s Guide for the MMPI-2-RF Police Candidate Interpretive Report (PCIR; Corey and Ben-Porath 2014). In the present concurrent validity study, conceptually based hypotheses regarding associations between MMPI-2-RF scales and scores on the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI, Inwald et al. 1982; Hilson Research 2006), a test specifically designed to screen law enforcement officers, were tested with a sample of 277 male, full-time police officer candidates from four separate police departments of varying sizes examined after a conditional offer of employment was tendered. The majority of participants were Caucasian (69%), followed by African-American (27%), or Other/Mixed ethnicity (4%). Our hypotheses were largely borne out, lending support to the construct validity of the MMPI-2-RF and the ability of scores on the inventory to assess variables relevant to police candidate evaluations.

A Prorating Method for Estimating MMPI-2-RF Scores From MMPI Responses: Examination of Score Fidelity and Illustration of Empirical Utility in the PERSEREC Police Integrity Study Sample.

The purpose of the current study was to identify Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) correlates of police officer integrity violations and other problem behaviors in an archival database with original MMPI item responses and collateral information regarding integrity violations obtained for 417 male officers. In Study 1, we estimated MMPI-2-RF scores from the MMPI item pool (which includes approximately 80% of the MMPI-2-RF items) in a normative sample, a psychiatric inpatient sample, and a police officer sample, and conducted analyses that demonstrated the comparability of estimated and full scale scores for 41 of the 51 MMPI-2-RF scales. In Study 2, we correlated estimated MMPI-2-RF scores with information about subsequent integrity violations and problem behaviors from the integrity violation data set. Several meaningful associations were obtained, predominately with scales from the emotional, thought, and behavioral dysfunction domains of the MMPI-2-RF. Application of a correction for range restriction yielded substantially improved validity estimates. Finally, we calculated relative risk ratios for the statistically significant findings using cutoffs lower than 65T, which is traditionally used to identify clinically significant elevations, and found several meaningful relative risk ratios.

The Development of a Preliminary Creativity Scale for the MMPI-2: The C Scale

A creativity scale was developed for the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Indicator, 2nd edition (MMPI-2). A criterion-based, contrasting group strategy was implemented using the Creative Behavior Inventory (CBI; Hocevar, 1979) to define high versus low creative groups. Two-thirds of the valid 192 data sets were randomly selected to identify the MMPI-2 items included for consideration in the creativity (C) scale. The remaining third of the sample served to determine the psychometric properties of the 31 item C scale, which was found to have adequate discriminant ability and reliability. MMPI-2 scales with significant correlations to the C scale were Scale 4, Scale 5, Scale 9, and Scale O; as well as GF, MAC-R, ES, and SOD.

Development and Validation of a Response Bias Scale (RBS) for the MMPI-2

This study describes the development of a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) scale designed to detect negative response bias in forensic neuropsychological or disability assessment settings. The Response Bias Scale (RBS) consists of 28 MMPI-2 items that discriminated between persons who passed or failed the Word Memory Test (WMT), Computerized Assessment of Response Bias (CARB), and/or Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) in a sample of 1,212 nonhead-injury disability claimants. Incremental validity of the RBS was evaluated by comparing its ability to detect poor performance on four separate symptom validity tests with that of the F and F(P) scales and the Fake Bad Scale (FBS). The RBS consistently outperformed F, F(P), and FBS. Study results suggest that the RBS may be a useful addition to existing MMPI-2 validity scales and indices in detecting symptom complaints predominantly associated with cognitive response bias and overreporting in forensic neuropsychological and disability assessment settings.

Tell Me a Story: MMPI Responses and Personal Biography in the Case of a Serial Killer

The interpretation of MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1943) profiles has emphasized a language of pathological attribution that often serves the interests of clinical description and actuarial prediction better than those of individual case formulation and an understanding of the adaptive forces involved in the production of symptomatic behavior. In this article, I illustrate a contrasting approach, one that emphasizes MMPI items and scales as instruments of personal biography, with the case of the serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer.

The relationship between date of birth and individual differences in personality and general intelligence: A large-scale study

We investigated the relationship between date of birth and individual differences in personality and intelligence in two large samples. The first sample consisted of 4000+ middle-aged male subjects from the Vietnam Experience Study; personality was measured by the MMPI items converted to EPQ (scales) and a large battery of cognitive tests were factored to derive general intelligence, g. The second sample consisted of 11,000+ young adults from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth from 1979. g was extracted from the ten subtests of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. In no cases did date of birth relate to individual differences in personality or general intelligence. A further goal was to test Eysenck’s notion of possible relationships between date of birth and the popular Sun Signs in astrology. No support could be found for such associations. We conclude that the present large-scale study provides no evidence for the existence of relevant relationships between date of birth and individual differences in personality and general intelligence.

Development and validation of an MMPI-based Sensation Seeking Scale

A measure of the sensation seeking construct was developed based on the MMPI item pool. An 18-item scale resulting from content and factor analysis had high test–retest reliability in a sample of 95 undergraduates. The scale showed good convergent and discriminant validity with respect to Zuckerman’s (1979) Sensation Seeking Scale Form V and predictive validity similar to that of the Sensation Seeking Scale when evaluated in a separate sample of 175 undergraduates. In a sample of 461 twin pairs the new scale had a heritability of 0.52, which is also similar to past results for the Sensation Seeking Scale. The results suggest that the new MMPI-based sensation seeking measure may be a useful alternative to previously developed measures of the construct, particularly in settings where the MMPI is already being collected for other reasons.

RETRACTED: The construct validity of the Lees-Haley Fake Bad Scale Does this scale measure somatic malingering and feigned emotional distress?

The Fake Bad Scale (FBS [Psychol. Rep. 68 (1991) 203]) was created from MMPI-2 items to assess faking of physical complaints among personal injury claimants. Little psychometric information is available on the measure. This study was conducted to investigate the psychometric characteristics of the FBS using MMPI-2 profiles from six settings: Psychiatric Inpatient (N=6731); Correctional Facility (N=2897); Chronic Pain Program (N=4408); General Medical (N=5080); Veteran's Administration Hospital Inpatient (N=901); and Personal Injury Litigation (N=157). Most correlations of the FBS and raw scores on the MMPI-2 were positive with correlations among the validity scales being lower than correlations among the clinical and content scales. The FBS was most strongly correlated with raw scores on Hs, D, Hy, HEA, and DEP. When the more conservative cutoff of 26 was used, the FBS classified 2.4-30.6% of individuals as malingerers. The highest malingering classification was for the women's personal injury sample (37.9%) while the lowest was among male prison inmates (2.3%). Compared to men, in most samples, almost twice as many women were classified as malingerers. The results indicate that the FBS is more likely to measure general maladjustment and somatic complaints rather than malingering. The rate of false positives produced by the scale is unacceptably high, especially in psychiatric settings. The scale is likely to classify an unacceptably large number of individuals who are experiencing genuine psychological distress as malingerers. It is recommended that the FBS not be used in clinical settings nor should it be used during disability evaluations to determine malingering.

The Infrequency-Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Scale (Fptsd) for the MMPI-2: Development and Initial Validation With Veterans Presenting With Combat-Related PTSD

Researchers have identified difficulties associated with the use of traditional Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2; Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) validity scales with survivors of traumatic events. A new scale, the Infrequency-Posttraumatic Stress Disorder scale (Fptsd), was created from MMPI-2 items that were infrequently endorsed by 940 male combat veterans presenting for treatment at the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) clinics of 2 Veterans Affairs Medical Centers. A variety of statistical methods were implemented that preliminarily established Fptsd's validity with a validation sample of 323 additional PTSD-diagnosed combat veterans. Results indicate that, relative to previously established validity and overreporting scales (F, Fb, and Fp), Fptsd was significantly less related to psychopathology and distress and better at discriminating simulated from genuinely reported PTSD. Clinical implications are discussed concerning the use of Fptsd to assess disability-seeking veterans suspected of overreporting PTSD symptoms.

Dyadic agreement on the MMPI-2

Abstract Research in behavior genetics has documented assortative mating with respect to physical, demographic, sociocultural, and personality variables. The present study examined patterns of dyadic similarity on personality characteristics reflected on MMPI-2 items and scales in a sample of 982 couples. MMPI-2 scales with high dyadic correlations appear to entail the following broad domains: attitudes about substance use (MMPI-2 scales AAS, APS, and MAC-R), domestic satisfaction (MSD, FAM, and Pd), and mistrust (ASP, CYN, and Re). Principal components analysis of a matrix of 60 items possessing strong dyadic correlations revealed nine underlying dimensions: Cynical Mistrust, Substance Abuse, Domestic Dissatisfaction, Sensation-Seeking, Financial Worry, Stereotypic Masculinity, Self-Confidence, Piety, and Deviant Ideation. Years of acquaintance did not moderate dyadic similarity. Couples receiving counseling demonstrated less dyadic similarity than couples not in counseling.

RELATIONSHIPS OF OBJECTIVELY SCORED BENDER VARIABLES WITH MMPI SCORES IN AN OUTPATIENT PSYCHIATRIC POPULATION

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether the Advanced Psychodiagnostic Interpretation system for the Bender Gestalt Test could reasonably predict the results of the most widely used objective measure of personality, the MMPI. Despite the widespread use of both tests, no previous studies could be found which correlated actual Bender scores with MMPI results, arising partly from the lack of a well-accepted, reliable, and objective scoring system for the Bender, The study compared the performance of 279 adult psychological outpatients on both the MMPI and Bender. The 55 Bender scorable points, which are seen most frequently in the outpatient population, were factor analyzed to yield 17 factors which were correlated with the MMPI. Significant multiple correlations were found between the Bender factors and 10 of 12 MMPI scales, with significant correlations ranging from .36 to .47. The Bender overall was able to discriminate moderately high scorers on the MMPI from low scorers. The overall results suggested that the Advanced Psychodiagnostic Interpretation scoring system includes measures that reflect general psychopathology and correlate with the MMPI as well as more specific content that is independent of the MMPI scales. The potential of this scoring system and joint use of the MMPI and Bender in personality assessment are discussed. Replication with a larger sample than 279 is encouraged for these 55 Bender and 12 MMPI items.

MMPI-2 scale F(p) and symptom feigning: scale refinement.

The F(p) scale of the MMPI-2 is widely used to help identify exaggeration of psychological problems in psychiatric, forensic, and neuropsychological settings. The scale was constructed by selecting all MMPI-2 items (N = 27) that were endorsed by less than 20% of a sample of VA psychiatric inpatients and 20% of the normative sample used in restandardizing the MMPI-2. Although F(p) is used to measure symptom exaggeration and malingering, 4 of its 27 items load on the Lie (L) scale, which is known to be a measure of defensiveness and symptom underreporting. These four items, which express a denial of occasional anger, irritability, and procrastination, could conceivably measure an uncommon expression of defensiveness. This study used 150 neuropsychological referrals to test the hypotheses that (a) the four L scale items measure defensiveness, not exaggeration, and (b) the elimination of these items improves the utility of F(p) in assessing symptom exaggeration. The results indicate that the four L scale items are associated with defensiveness, not with symptom exaggeration. One third of the patients had an average T-score artifact of 9.5 points on F(p) as a result of endorsing these L scale items, with a range of 0T to 21T. Using the K scale as a criterion for level of problem disclosure, a shortened version of F(p) (omitting the four L scale items) was superior to F(p) as a measure of symptom exaggeration (r = -.46 vs. -.36, r2 = 21% vs. 13% of the variance). The implications for clinical practice are discussed.

The Development of the Somatoform Dissociation Index (SDI)

The development of a new instrument for measuring dissociation, the Somatoform Dissociation Index (SDI), based on somatic items embedded in the MMPI is described. Logistic regression analyses revealed a set of 11 MMPI items that best optimized discrimination of dissociative and non-dissociative patients. The SDFs split-half reliabilities were .85 and .83 across studies. Cronbach's alpha scores were .82 and .86, respectively. Convergent validity was confirmed by significant correlations between the SDI and three commonly used measures of dissociation. A cutoff score of 6 was the SDI score with the highest accuracy of clinical classification when dissociation was quantified by summing salient responses to the individual items. The utility of the SDI and the Somatoform Dissociation Questionnaire as viable measures of dissociation was compared and discussed.

Random responding to the MMPI-2 F scale.

Exact probabilities for a variety of F scale cutoffs are presented for detecting examinees who respond randomly to the MMPI-2 items.

Desirability of old and new MMPI-2 items.

Desirability ratings and endorsements are significantly lower for new MMPI-2 items than for MMPI-2 items that initially appeared on the MMPI. Interpretation of the findings is uncertain because different samples rated the desirability of the old and new items. Ratings of all items by a single sample are required.

An MMPI-2 Scale to Identify History of Physical Abuse

This study attempted to extract an MMPI-2 scale identifying adult male and female victims of childhood physical abuse. Such a scale may alert clinicians early in treatment to issues related to trauma. Victims may not disclose such a history because of discomfort or because they may not make the connection between past events and present-day functioning. Early detection of victims is important because victims are more prone to enter abusive relationships as adults or to become abusers. The sample (N = 201), recruited from a community mental health center and a low-fee outpatient center to represent a broad clinical population, was divided into a physical abuse reporting group and a comparison group. A stepwise discriminant function analysis based on Wilks's lambda yielded 95.5% correct classification (using 43 MMPI-2 items), suggesting that the MMPI-2 can be an important aid in the identification of individuals who suffered from childhood physical abuse.

Prospective Study of the MMPI-2 Correction Factor after Mild Head Injury

Gass (1991) proposed a correction factor composed of 14 MMPI-2 items that were characteristically endorsed by patients with closed-head injury. Their frequency of occurrence suggested that the items reflected the neurological rather than emotional consequences of head injury. The current study was designed to evaluate the interpretive significance of correction factor items after mild head trauma. Patients were examined immediately upon hospitalization and followed prospectively for at least 3 months. Correction factor items were endorsed more frequently during acute hospitalization than in the MMPI-2 standardization sample. At follow-up, none of the items were endorsed more often by patients with chronic mild head injury than by uninjured controls. These results suggest that the correction factor is sensitive to the acute neurological consequences of mild head trauma, but that these symptoms can typically be expected to resolve. Chronic endorsement of the items in this population is therefore most likely related to psychological factors.

A prospective study of dominance and coronary heart disease in the normative aging study

The purpose of this study was to examine the prospective relation between dominance, as assessed by a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2)-derived dominance scale, and incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD), independent of participants’ anger level. The study was performed in the VA Normative Aging Study, an ongoing cohort of older (mean age 61 years) men. A total of 1,225 men who were free of CHD in 1986 completed the MMPI-2. A factor analysis of selected MMPI items provided the basis for the construction of a dominance scale and an anger scale. During an average of 8 years of follow-up, 158 cases of incident CHD occurred, including 29 cases of fatal CHD, 69 cases of nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI), and 60 cases of angina pectoris (AP). Compared with men reporting the lowest levels of dominance (lower tertile), the multivariate-adjusted relative risk among men reporting the highest levels of dominance (upper tertile) was 1.80 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.21 to 3.24) for combined nonfatal MI and fatal CHD. Additional adjustment for anger scores did not significantly alter this relation. There was no significant relation between dominance and AP. Our data suggest that dominance is an independent risk factor for CHD in older men.

Incremental validity of the MMPI-2 content scales in an outpatient mental health setting.

The incremental validity of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Content Scales (MMPI-2; J. N. Butcher, J. R. Graham, C. L. Williams, & Y. S. Ben-Porath, 1990) was examined using clinical and content scale scores to predict conceptually relevant symptoms and personality characteristics of 274 male and 425 female mental health center outpatients. Regression analyses were performed to determine if the content scales contributed significantly beyond the conceptually relevant clinical scales in predicting therapists' ratings. Of the 10 content scales analyzed, incremental validity was demonstrated for 7 scales for men and 3 scales for women. A 2nd set of analyses indicated that incremental validity was demonstrated for 4 clinical scales for men and 6 clinical scales for women. The findings provide further evidence that the content scales aid interpretation of MMPI-2 scores by contributing additional information beyond the clinical scales. The clinical scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI; Hathaway & McKinley, 1942) were constructed using an empirical-keying approach, resulting in heterogeneity of content for each of the scales. Because not all items of a given scale are related logically to the clinical syndrome that the scale was developed to assess, and the clinical scale score itself does not directly reflect which content areas are endorsed by a test-taker, heterogeneity serves to reduce the ease with which clinical scale scores are interpreted and their meanings are communicated (Butcher, Graham, Williams, & Ben-Porath, 1990). Consideration of item content became more important as researchers and clinicians recognized its usefulness in score interpretation (Graham, 1993). Several attempts have been made to devise an effective method of assessing the item content endorsed by test-takers. One of the earliest approaches involved critical items whose content was judged to be indicative of serious psychopathology (Caldwell, 1969; Grayson, 1951; Koss & Butcher, 1973; Lachar & Wrobel, 1979). Another approach was to create content-based subscales within some of the clinical scales (Harris & Lingoes, 1955/1968). Also attempting to create content scales, Tryon and several colleagues (Stein, 1968) used factor analysis to identify clusters of items from across the entire test. In the most thorough and comprehensive effort at creating content scales for the MMPI, Wiggins (1966) used a combined rational-statistical approach that resulted in 13 content scales formed from across the entire MMPI item pool. These scales were

An MMPI-2 scale to identify history of sexual abuse.

This study attempted to extract an MMPI-2 scale identifying adult male and female victims of severely traumatogenic childhood sexual abuse. Such a scale might aid in the early detection and diagnosis of trauma sustained from abuse and lead to prevention of childhood sexual abuse in subsequent generations since victims are more likely to expose their offspring to similar abuse. Victims of severe childhood sexual abuse almost inevitably suffer from trauma. Taking the severity of abuse into consideration, a higher identification rate than the one obtained in previous attempts was expected. The sample (N = 201), recruited from a low-fee outpatient clinic and a community mental health center, was divided into a severe childhood sexual abuse-reporting group and a control group, based on Russell's (1983) definitions. To cross validate, the data were analyzed three ways. A stepwise discriminant function analysis based on Wilks Lambda yielded 95% correct classification (using 52 MMPI-2 items), a discriminant function analysis based on chi-squared yielded 77% classification (using 63 items), and a stepwise logit analysis yielded 71% classification (using 15 items). There was little agreement among the items identified by the three solutions.