MMPI - notes on the MMPI test PDF

Preview

Summary

notes on the MMPI test...

Description

October 27, 2015 MMPI     

  

  



personality test – one of the “gold standards” in personality tests Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Designed to assess number of major patterns of personality and emotional disorders Requires an 8th grade level of reading Originally developed in a hospital at University of Minnesota on groups of patients and nonpatients (visitors) o There are different ways that tests can be developed o This one was developed using the experimental method o Started off with a specific group of patients that were diagnosed, then they checked their scale to see how those patients compared o EXPERIMENTAL METHOD Hathaway and McKinley in 1940 – published first article on inventory Over years added potential items – started out with 1,000 Reduced to 504 then up to 567 o It’s been around forever #1 o There are a lot of questions, #2 o And the newest version is essentially the same length, #3 Used Empirical Scale Construction By 1956 consisted of 10 scales The basic test consists of 10 scales (10 clinical scales) o What separates this test, is that there are built in validity scales o The purpose of the validity scales is to give an indication of whether the profile the person is giving you is valid (indicators of guessing? Etc.) Originally had 3 indicators of validity

Clinical Scales Hs - Hypochondriasis – developed on neurotic pts. Concerns with health, somatic complaints, preoccupation D

- Depression

Hy

- Conversion Hysteria – sensory /motor disorder with no organic basis

Pd

- Psychopathic Deviate – problem with law, lack of concern for social/moral standards

Mf

- Masculinity/Femininity – items cover range of emotional reactions, interests, attitudes, work/social relationships on which men and women typically differ

Pa

- Paranoia – tendency to misinterpret motives, intentions of others

Pt

- Psychasthenia – compulsions, rituals, exaggerated fears (OCD)

Sc

- Schizophrenia – strange beliefs, unusual experiences (hallucinations)

Ma

- Hypomania (in the same category of manic behaviour, hypo meaning less-than)

Si

- Social Introversion

One of the nice things about this test – there are so many questions that they have developed & made available other kinds of scales that also, using more common terms, measure a lot of the issues that I would be interested in. For example, McAndrew’s alcoholic scale. MMPI – II  Revision/upgrade  Re-standardization  13 items deleted, 50 items re-worded  567 True/False Questions o they purposely, after much debate, decided NOT to change the test very much, not to change the wording of the clinical scales… if you do research on the MMPI, there are thousands and thousands of articles and books about it. It has a lot of literature. If we are going to do an upgrade, what’s going to happen to all of that literature? As a consequence, very slight number of items were taken out, a few were re-worded, the test is pretty much intact To score, there is an overlay that you lay over top, one for each scale, you count up the number they circled.  a lot of the questions don’t go on to any of the scales “filler questions” Validity Scales  ? Cannot say = # of unanswered questions  higher the #, weaker the profile, T > 60 invalid  L – Lie scale – defensive role playing o Designed to look at, is the person projecting a perfectionistic self image o “I never had a headache” o indicates the likelihood that the subject has a perfectionistic self image o low T “faking bad” o high T “faking good”, T>55, perfectionistic, defensive  F – Infrequency Scale o Deviant or random responding o Random answers, out of contact with reality, or those exaggerating their difficulties o Less than 10% of population scores on these questions o Low T (40) – acceptable – possibly faking good o High T (60) – faking bad – psychotic, antisocial  K Correction Scale o Most complex o Used to add “correction” to 5 clinical scales o Related to tendency to either cover up or exaggerate problems o Range of characteristics that people typically try to deny about themselves and their families o High K reflects a minimization o On the profile sheet – the raw score and the K get plotted on the profile sheet o However, well functioning people (often associated with Higher SES) have been shown to score higher on K scale o “Some people are more open about themselves” o K is used to correct for these test taking orientations o Scales that are not corrected by K have items that do that already o So, K must be interpreted in context of other scales o Low K – T60, faking good, marked defensiveness, rigid o F/K – if F is high and K is low = faking bad. o If K is high and F is low = faking good

 Additional Validity Scales  Fb = Back F  Developed the same way as F scale, ie., low endorsement frequency to identify those who may be completing the inventory in an invalid manner  Most of the 40 items are after those in F scale  Fb – may identify those who have stopped paying attention to test items (random responding) VRIN – Variable Response Inconsistency Scale TRIN – True Response Inconsistency Scale  new types of validity scales – experimental  index of the tendency to respond in inconsistent or contradictory ways  “pairs of items” set up so the “correct” answer is either answering True to both, or True to one and False to the other. Test is the same format – 40 MC from textbook, 2 written answer questions coming right from the notes  Johnny did poorly in Comprehension and picture arrangement  Comprehension – questions related to typical social kinds of things  Know that it loads onto which index and what it measures?  “why would I use this test, what would the value be of using this test” – you could add on, it shows good reliability or validity  Cancellation – where’s waldo? Loads onto concentration, attention span...