History
The original authors of the MMPI were American psychologistMMPI
The original MMPI was developed on a scale-by-scale basis in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Hathaway and McKinley used an empirical riterionkeying approach, with clinical scales derived by selecting items that were endorsed by patients known to have been diagnosed with certainMMPI-2
The first major revision of the MMPI was the MMPI-2, which was standardized on a new national sample of adults in the United States and released in 1989. The new standardization was based on 2,600 individuals from a more representative background than the MMPI. It is appropriate for use with adults 18 and over. Subsequent revisions of certain test elements have been published, and a wide variety of sub scales were introduced over many years to help clinicians interpret the results of the original 10 clinical scales. The current MMPI-2 has 567 items, and usually takes between one and two hours to complete depending on reading level. It is designed to require a sixth-gradeMMPI-A
A version of the test designed for adolescents ages 14 to 18, the MMPI-A, was released in 1992. The youth version was developed to improve measurement of personality, behavior difficulties, and psychopathology among adolescents. It addressed limitations of using the original MMPI among adolescent populations.Butcher, J.N., Williams, C.L., Graham, J.R., Archer, R.P., Tellegen, A., Ben-Porath, Y.S., & Kaemmer, B. (1992). ''Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent Version(MMPI-A): Manual for administration, scoring and interpretation''. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Twelve- to thirteen-year-old children were assessed and could not adequately understand the question content so the MMPI-A is not meant for children younger than 14. Children who are 18 and no longer in high school may appropriately be tested with the MMPI-2. Some concerns related to use of the MMPI with youth included inadequate item content, lack of appropriate norms, and problems with extreme reporting. For example, many items were written from an adult perspective, and did not cover content critical to adolescents (e.g., peers, school). Likewise, adolescent norms were not published until the 1970s, and there was not consensus on whether adult or adolescent norms should be used when the instrument was administered to youth. Finally, the use of adult norms tended to overpathologize adolescents, who demonstrated elevations on most original MMPI scales (e.g., T scores greater than 70 on the F validity scale; marked elevations on clinical scales 8 and 9). Therefore, an adolescent version was developed and tested during the restandardization process of the MMPI, which resulted in the MMPI-A. The MMPI-A has 478 items. It includes the original 10 clinical scales (Hs, D, Hy, Pd, Mf, Pa, Pt, Sc, Ma, Si), six validity scales (?, L, F, F1, F2, K, VRIN, TRIN), 31 Harris Lingoes subscales, 15 content component scales (A-anx, A-obs, A-dep, A-hea, A-ain, A-biz, A-ang, A-cyn, A-con, A-lse, A-las, A-sod, A-fam, A-sch, A-trt), the Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY-5) scales (AGGR, PSYC, DISC, NEGE, INTR), three socialMMPI-2-RF
The University of Minnesota Press published a new version of the MMPI-2, the MMPI-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF), in 2008. The MMPI-2-RF builds on the Restructured Clinical (RC) scales developed in 2003, and subsequently subjected to extensive research, with an overriding goal of improved discriminant validity, or the ability of the test to reliably differentiate between clinical syndromes or diagnoses. Most of the MMPI and MMPI-2 Clinical Scales are relatively heterogeneous, i.e., they measure diverse groupings of signs and symptoms, such that an elevation on Scale 2 (Depression), for example, may or may not indicate a depressive disorder. The MMPI-2-RF scales, on the other hand, are fairly homogeneous; are designed to more precisely measure distinct symptom constellations or disorders. From a theoretical perspective, the MMPI-2-RF scales rest on an assumption that psychopathology is a homogeneous condition that is additive. Advances in psychometric theory, test development methods, and statistical analyses used to develop the MMPI-2-RF were not available when the MMPI was developed.MMPI-3
The MMPI-3 was released in December 2020. Its primary goals were to enhance the item pool, update the test norms, optimize existing scales, and introduce new scales (that assess disordered eating, compulsivity, impulsivity, and self-importance). It features a new, nationally representative normative sample, selected to match projections for race and ethnicity, education, and age. Spanish language norms are available for use with the U.S. Spanish translation of the MMPI-3.Scale composition
Clinical scales
The original clinical scales were designed to measure common diagnoses of the era.Code Types
Codetypes are a combination of the two or three (and according to a few authors even four) highest-scoring clinical scales (e.g. 4, 8, 6 = 486). Codetypes are interpreted as a single, wider ranged elevation, rather than interpreting each scale individually. For profiles without defined code types interpretation should focus on the individual scales.Psychopathic Deviate
This scale comes from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2), where 50 statements compose the Psychopathic Deviate subscale. The 50 statements must be answered in true or false format as applied to one's self. The Psychopathic Deviate scale measures general social maladjustment and the absence of strongly pleasant experiences. The items on this scale tap into complaints about family and authority figures in general, self-alienation, social alienation and boredom. When diagnosing psychopathy, the MMPI-2's Psychopathic Deviate scale is considered one of the traditional personality tests that contain subscales relating to psychopathy, though they assess relatively non-specific tendencies towards antisocial or criminal behavior.Clinical subscales
The clinical scales are heterogeneous for their item content. To assist clinicians in interpreting the scales, researchers have developed subscales of more homogeneous items within each scale. The ''Harris–Lingoes (1955)'' scales was one of the most widely used results of this approach and were included in the MMPI-2 and MMPI-A.Restructured Clinical (RC) scales
The Restructured Clinical scales were designed to be psychometrically improved versions of the original clinical scales, which were known to contain a high level of interscale correlation, overlapping items, and were confounded by the presence of an overarching factor that has since been extracted and placed in a separate scale ( demoralization). The RC scales measure the core constructs of the original clinical scales. Critics of the RC scales assert they have deviated too far from the original clinical scales, the implication being that previous research done on the clinical scales will not be relevant to the interpretation of the RC scales. However, researchers on the RC scales assert that the RC scales predict pathology in their designated areas better than their concordant original clinical scales while using significantly fewer items and maintaining equal to higher internal consistency, reliability and validity; further, unlike the original clinical scales, the RC scales are not saturated with the primary factor (demoralization, now captured in RCdem) which frequently produced diffuse elevations and made interpretation of results difficult; finally, the RC scales have lower interscale correlations and, in contrast to the original clinical scales, contain no interscale item overlap. The effects of removal of the common variance spread across the older clinical scales due to a general factor common to psychopathology, through use of sophisticated psychometric methods, was described as a paradigm shift in personality assessment. Critics of the new scales argue that the removal of this common variance makes the RC scales less ecologically valid (less like real life) because real patients tend to present complex patterns of symptoms. Proponents of the MMPI-2-RF argue that this potential problem is addressed by being able to view elevations on other RC scales that are less saturated with the general factor and, therefore, are also more transparent and much easier to interpret.Validity scales
The validity scales in all versions of the MMPI-2 (MMPI-2 and RF) contain three basic types of validity measures: those that were designed to detect non-responding or inconsistent responding (CNS, VRIN, TRIN), those designed to detect when clients are over reporting or exaggerating the prevalence or severity of psychological symptoms (F, Fb, Fp, FBS), and those designed to detect when test-takers are under-reporting or downplaying psychological symptoms (L, K, S). A new addition to the validity scales for the MMPI-2-RF includes an over reporting scale of somatic symptoms (Fs) as well as revised versions of the validity scales of the MMPI-2 (VRIN-r, TRIN-r, F-r, Fp-r, FBS-r, L-r, and K-r). The MMPI-2-RF does not include the S or Fb scales, and the F-r scale now covers the entirety of the test.Content scales
Although elevations on the clinical scales are significant indicators of certain psychological conditions, it is difficult to determine exactly what specific behaviors the high scores are related to. The content scales of the MMPI-2 were developed for the purpose of increasing the incremental validity of the clinical scales. The content scales contain items intended to provide insight into specific types of symptoms and areas of functioning that the clinical scales do not measure, and are supposed to be used in addition to the clinical scales to interpret profiles. They were developed by Butcher, Graham, Williams and Ben-Porath using similar rational and statistical procedures as Wiggins who developed the original MMPI content scales. The items on the content scales contain obvious content and therefore are susceptible to response bias – exaggeration or denial of symptoms, and should be interpreted with caution. T scores greater than 65 on any content scale are considered high scores.Content component scales
The MMPI-2 and MMPI-A included subscales for some of the content scales to further specify the results. For example, ''Depression (DEP)'' was broken down into ''Lack of drive (DEP)'', ''Dysphoria (DEP)'', ''Self-depreciation (DEP)'' and ''Suicidal ideation (DEP)''.Supplemental scales
To supplement these multidimensional scales and to assist in interpreting the frequently seen diffuse elevations due to the general factor (removed in the RC scales) were also developed, with the more frequently used being the substance abuse scales (MAC-R, APS, AAS), designed to assess the extent to which a client admits to or is prone to abusing substances, and the A (anxiety) and R (repression) scales, developed by Welsh after conducting a factor analysis of the original MMPI item pool.PSY-5 (Personality Psychopathology Five) scales
The PSY-5 is set of scales measuring dimensional traits of personality disorders, originally developed from factor analysis of the personality disorder content of the ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders''.Harkness, A. R., McNulty, J. L., & Ben-Porath, Y. S. (1995). The Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY-5): Constructs and MMPI-2 scales. ''Psychological Assessment, 7'', 104. Originally, these scales were titled: Aggressiveness, Psychoticism, Constraint, Negative Emotionality/Neuroticism, and Positive Emotionality/Extraversion; however, in the most current edition of the MMPI-2 and MMPI-2-RF, the Constraint and Positive Emotionality scales have been reversed and renamed as Disconstraint and Introversion / Low Positive Emotionality. Across several large samples including clinical, college, and normative populations, the MMPI-2 PSY-5 scales showed moderate internal consistency and intercorrelations comparable with the domain scales on the NEO-PI-R Big Five personality measure. Also, scores on the MMPI-2 PSY-5 scales appear to be similar across genders, and the structure of the PSY-5 has been reproduced in a Dutch psychiatric sample.MMPI-A-RF
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory – Adolescent – Restructured Form (MMPI-A-RF) is a broad-band instrument used to psychologically evaluate adolescents. It was published in 2016 and was primarily authored by Robert P. Archer, Richard W. Handel, Yossef S. Ben-Porath, and Auke Tellegen. It is a revised version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory – Adolescent (MMPI-A). Like the MMPI-A, this version is intended for use with adolescents aged 14–18 years old. It consists of 241 true-false items which produce scores on 48 scales: 6 Validity scales (VRIN-r, TRIN-r, CRIN, F-r, L-r, K-r), 3 Higher-Order scales (EID, THD, BXD), 9 Restructured Clinical scales (RCd, RC1, RC2, RC3, RC4, RC6, RC7, RC8, RC9), 25 Specific Problem scales, and revised versions of the MMPI-A PSY-5 scales (AGGR-r, PSYC-r, DISC-r, NEGE-r, INTR-r). It also features 14 critical items, including 7 regarding depressing and suicidal ideation. The MMPI-A-RF was designed to address limitations of its predecessor, such as the scale heterogeneity and item overlap of the original clinical scales. The weaknesses of the clinical scales resulted in intercorrelations of several MMPI-A scales and limited discriminant validity of the scales. To address the issues with the clinical scales, the MMPI-A underwent a revision similar to the restructuring of the MMPI-2 to the MMPI-2-RF. Specifically, a demoralization scale was developed, and each clinical scale underwent exploratory factor analysis to identify its distinctive components. Additionally, the Specific Problems (SP) scales were developed. Whereas the RC scales provide a broad overview of psychological problems (e.g., low positive emotions or symptoms of depression; antisocial behavior; bizarre thoughts), the SP scales offered narrow, focused descriptions of the problems the individual reported he or she was experiencing. The MMPI-2-RF SP Scales were used as a template. First, corresponding items from the MMPI-2-RF were identified in the MMPI-A, and then 58 items unique to the MMPI-A were added to the item pool. This way the MMPI-A-RF SP scales could maintain continuity with the MMPI-2-RF but also address issues specific to adolescent problems. After a preliminary set of SP scales were developed based on their content, each scale went through statistical tests (factor analysis) to make sure they did not overlap or relate too strongly to the RC demoralization scale.Archer, R. P., Handel, R. W., Ben-Porath, Y. S., & Tellegen, A. (2016). MMPI-A-RF: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent-Restructured Form: Administration, Scoring, Interpretation, and Technical Manual. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Additional statistical analyses were done to make sure each SP scale contained items that were strongly related (correlated) with its scale and less strongly associated with other scales; in the end, each item appeared on only one SP scale. These scales were developed to provide additional information in association with the RC scales, but SP scales are not subscales and can be interpreted even when the related RC scale is not elevated. As noted above, 25 SP scales were developed. Of these, 19 have the same names as the corresponding MMPI-2-RF SP scales, although the specific items that make up SP scales on each form are different. The following 5 scales were unique to the MMPI-A-RF: Obsessions/Compulsions (OCS), Antisocial Attitudes (ASA), Conduct Problems (CNP), Negative Peer Influence (NPI) and Specific Fears (SPF). The SP scales were organized into four groupings: Somatic/Cognitive, Internalizing, Externalizing, and Interpersonal Scales. The Somatic/Cognitive scales (MLS, GIC, HPC, NUC, and COG) share their names with the SP scales on the MMPI-2-RF, are related to RC1, and focus on aspects of physical health and functioning. There are nine Internalizing scales. The first three (HLP, SFD, and NFC) are related to aspects of demoralization, or the general sense of unhappiness, and the remaining scales (OCS, STW, AXY, ANP, BRF, SPF) assess for Dysfunctional Negative Emotions (e.g., a tendency toward worry, fearfulness, and anxiety). Six Externalizing scales (NSA, ASA, CNP, SUB, NPI, and AGG) are related to antisocial behavior, and the need for excitement and stimulating activity (i.e., hypomanic activation). Finally, Interpersonal scales (FML, IPP, SAV, SHY, and DSF), while not related to particular RC scales, focus on aspects of social and relational functioning with family and peers. Additionally, the 478-item length of the MMPI-A was identified as a challenge to adolescent attention span and concentration. To address this, the MMPI-A-RF has less than half the items of the MMPI-A.Higher-Order scales
''Higher-Order (H-O) Scales'' were introduced with the MMPI-2-RF and they are identical in the MMPI-A-RF and the MMPI-3. Their function is to assess problems of three general areas of functioning: affective, cognitive (thought) and behavioral.Specific Problems (SP) scales
Interest Scales
The MMPI-2-RF includes two Interest Scales. The ''Aesthetic-Literary Interests (AES)'' scale rates interest in literature, music and theater, and the ''Mechanical-Physical Interests (MEC)'' scale measures interest in fixing and building things, the outdoors and sports.Criticism
Like many standardized tests, scores on the various scales of the MMPI-2 and the MMPI-2-RF are not representative of either percentile rank or how "well" or "poorly" someone has done on the test. Rather, analysis looks at relative elevation of factors compared to the various norm groups studied. Raw scores on the scales are transformed into a standardized metric known as T-scores (Mean or Average equals 50, Standard Deviation equals 10), making interpretation easier for clinicians. Test manufacturers and publishers ask test purchasers to prove they are qualified to purchase the MMPI/MMPI-2/MMPI-2-RF and other tests.Addition of the Lees-Haley FBS (Symptom Validity)
Psychologist Paul Lees-Haley developed the FBS (Fake Bad Scale). Although the FBS acronym remains in use, the official name for the scale changed to Symptom Validity Scale when it was incorporated into the standard scoring reports produced by Pearson, the licensed publisher. Some psychologists question the validity and utility of the FBS scale. The peer-reviewed journal '' Psychological Injury and Law'' published a series of pro and con articles in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Investigations of the factor structure of the Symptom Validity Scale (FBS and FBS-r) raise doubts about the scale's construct and predictive validity in the detection of malingering.Racial disparity
One of the biggest criticisms of the original MMPI has been the difference between whites and non-whites. In the 1970s, Charles McCreary and Eligio Padilla from UCLA compared scores of Black, white and Mexican-American men and found that non-whites tended to score five points higher on the test. They stated: "There is continuing controversy about the appropriateness of the MMPI when decisions involve persons from non-white racial and ethnic backgrounds. In general, studies of such divergent populations as prison inmates, medical patients, psychiatric patients, and high school and college students have found that blacks usually score higher than whites on the L, F, Sc, and Ma scales. There is near agreement that the notion of more psychopathology in racial ethnic minority groups is simplistic and untenable. Nevertheless, three divergent explanations of racial differences on the MMPI have been suggested. Black-white MMPI differences reflect variations in values, conceptions, and expectations that result from growing up in different cultures. Another point of view maintains that differences on the MMPI between blacks and whites are not a reflection of racial differences, but rather a reflection of overriding socioeconomic variations between racial groups. Thirdly, MMPI scales may reflect socioeconomic factors, while other scales are primarily race-related."Translations of the MMPI
MMPI-2
The MMPI-2 is currently available in 22 different languages, including: * Bulgarian * Chinese * Croatian * Czech * Danish * Dutch/Flemish * French * Canada (Canadian French & English) * German * Greek * Hebrew * Hmong * Hungarian * Italian * Korean * Norwegian * Polish * Romanian * Slovak * Spanish for Mexico & Central America * Spanish for Spain, South America & Central America * Spanish for the US * Swedish * UkrainianMMPI-2 in Chinese
The Chinese MMPI-2 was developed by Fanny M. Cheung, Weizhen Song, and Jianxin Zhang for Hong Kong and adapted for use in the mainland. The Chinese MMPI was used as a base instrument from which some items, that were the same in the MMPI-2, were retained. New items on the Chinese MMPI-2 underwent translation from English to Chinese and then back translation from Chinese to English to establish uniformity of the items and their content. The psychometrics are robust with the Chinese MMPI-2 having high reliability (a measure of whether the results of the scale are consistent). Reliability coefficients were found to be over 0.8 for the test in Hong Kong and were between 0.58 and 0.91 across scales for the mainland. In addition, the correlation of the Chinese MMPI-2 and the English MMPI-2 was found to average 0.64 for the clinical scales and 0.68 for the content scales indicating that the Chinese MMPI-2 is an effective tool of personality assessment.MMPI-2 in Korean
The Korean MMPI-2 was initially translated by Kyunghee Han through a process of multiple rounds of translation (English to Korean) and back-translation (Korean to English), and it was tested in a sample of 726 Korean college students. In general, the test-retest reliabilities in the Korean sample were comparable to those in the American sample. For both culture samples, the median test-retest reliabilities were found to be higher for females than for males: 0.75 for Korean males and 0.78 for American males, whereas it was 0.85 for Korean females and 0.81 for American females. After retranslating and revising the items with minor translation accuracy problems, the final version of the Korean MMPI-2 was published in 2005. The published Korean MMPI-2 was standardized using a Korean adult normative sample, whose demographics were similar to the 2000 Korean Census data. Compared to the U. S. norm, scale means of Korean norm were significantly elevated; however, the reliabilities and validity of the Korean MMPI-2 were still found to be comparable with the English MMPI-2. The Korean MMPI-2 was further validated by using a Korean psychiatric sample from inpatient and outpatient facilities of Samsung National Hospital inMMPI-2 in Hmong
The MMPI-2 was translated into the Hmong language by Deinard, Butcher, Thao, Vang and Hang. The items for the Hmong-language MMPI-2 were obtained by translation and back-translation from the English version. After linguistic evaluation to ensure that the Hmong-language MMPI-2 was equivalent to the English MMPI-2, studies to assess whether the scales meant and measured the same concepts across the different languages. It was found that the findings from both the Hmong-language and English MMPI-2 were equivalent, indicating that the results obtained for a person tested with either version were very similar.MMPI-3
The MMPI-3 is currently available in English, French (for Canada) and Spanish forms.See also
* 16PF Questionnaire *Endnotes
References
External links