Personality instruments: the MMPI and projective tests

Transcript

SoheeA father in a child-custody evaluation sits down with a long true-or-false personality inventory. He reads at a college level. He answers consistently. And he agrees with an unusually large number of statements that make him sound, well, almost saintly.

RyanThe kind of statement OpenStax gives as an example: I have never told a lie.

SoheeAnd his score on one particular scale shoots up.

RyanWelcome to EPPP Prep, the podcast. I'm Ryan.

SoheeI'm Sohee. Today we're on commonly used instruments, specifically personality tests. The knowledge statement asks about the instruments and their appropriate use with various populations, so we'll cover what each test is, what it's good for, and where it falls short.

RyanAnd the stakes are real. OpenStax notes that personality tests are used to screen applicants for employment and job training, in criminal cases and custody battles, and to assess psychological disorders. Our custody father is right in the middle of that list.

RyanLet's start with self-report inventories, which OpenStax describes as a kind of objective test. They typically use multiple-choice items or numbered scales, often from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Those are called Likert scales, after Rensis Likert.

SoheeAnd the best known is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the MMPI. Here's its history, because the numbers get tested. First published in 1943, with 504 true-or-false questions. Updated to the MMPI-2 in 1989, with 567 questions.

RyanWhy the update? The original was based on a small, limited sample, mostly Minnesota farmers and psychiatric patients. The revision used a more representative national sample, allowing better standardization.

SoheeThen in 2008, the MMPI-2-RF, using more advanced methods. It takes about half the time, with only 338 questions. But the textbook notes the MMPI-2 is more established and still more widely used.

RyanThe MMPI-2 takes one to two hours, is typically given by computer, and produces a clinical profile of 10 scales, such as depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, hypomania and social introversion.

SoheeAnd it was built to help with clinical diagnosis, but it's now also used for occupational screening, such as in law enforcement, and in college, career and marital counseling.

RyanThere's a striking study in the textbook. Researchers gave the MMPI to newly recruited police officers, then again two years later. After two years on the job, responses suggested increased vulnerability to alcoholism, somatic symptoms and anxiety. Two years after that, the results suggested high risk for alcohol-related difficulties.

RyanNow back to our father. Besides the clinical scales, the MMPI has validity scales. One is the Lie scale, or L scale. It has 15 items, and it's used to find out whether a person is faking good, underreporting psychological problems to appear healthier.

SoheeSaying yes to many unrealistically positive items, like never having told a lie, suggests the person may be trying to appear better than they are.

RyanSo, pause and think. Our custody father: reads well, answers consistently, endorses many unrealistically virtuous statements, high L score. What's the most likely meaning?

SoheeFaking good. A parent in a custody case has a strong reason to look healthy.

RyanAnd look at the clues that rule out the alternatives. Faking bad would mean exaggerating problems, the opposite direction. Random responding is unlikely, because he reads well and answered consistently. And a long list of unrealistic virtues isn't a believable picture of excellent adjustment. It's the exact pattern the L scale was built to catch.

SoheeOur practice items use the same setup with a police officer applicant, a surgical candidate, a pilot in a fitness-for-duty evaluation, and a foster-parent applicant. Anyone with a reason to look healthy.

RyanWhich connects to the general weakness of self-report. OpenStax says test takers may answer in ways that are more socially desirable, exaggerated, or misleading, whether they mean to or not.

SoheeNow the other family: projective tests. OpenStax explains they rely on projection, one of Freud's proposed defense mechanisms, to assess unconscious processes. The person sees ambiguous material and projects feelings, impulses and desires onto it, by telling a story, interpreting an image, or completing a sentence.

RyanTheir advantage is the flip side of the MMPI problem. Projective tests are less subject to intentional distortion. It's hard to fake good, because it isn't obvious what a good answer is.

SoheeThe costs: they're more time consuming for the evaluator than self-report inventories. And validity varies a lot by test.

RyanTo be fair to the whole family, OpenStax also says many projective tests have undergone standardization procedures, and can be used to assess whether someone has unusual thoughts, a high level of anxiety, or is likely to become volatile. So the question is always which test, scored how.

RyanFirst, the Rorschach Inkblot Test, developed in 1921 by Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach. A series of symmetrical inkblot cards, and the psychologist asks, what might this be?

SoheeOpenStax says that when it's scored with the Exner system, the Rorschach is considered a valid and reliable measure, effective in measuring depression, psychosis and anxiety. But the validity of the other projective tests is questionable, and their results often aren't usable in court.

RyanSecond, the Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT, created in the 1930s by Henry Murray and Christiana Morgan. The person sees 8 to 12 ambiguous pictures and tells a story about each one.

SoheeAnd here's the key exam fact. Standardization of TAT administration is virtually nonexistent among clinicians, and the test tends to be modest to low on validity and reliability. Yet it's been one of the most widely used projective tests.

RyanSecond pause and think. A forensic evaluator plans to base an opinion about a defendant's risk of violence solely on the themes in his stories about TAT pictures, which she presents and interprets in her own way. What's the most important limitation?

SoheeTAT administration is rarely standardized, and its reliability and validity are modest to low. That's a poor basis, on its own, for a high-stakes opinion.

RyanAnd the distractors in that question come from other tests. Being open to deliberate faking describes self-report inventories. Norms from Minnesota farmers describe the original MMPI. And dependence on reading doesn't fit, because the TAT uses pictures and spoken stories.

SoheeThird, the Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank, developed by Julian Rotter in 1950. It has school, college and adult forms, with 40 incomplete sentences to finish as quickly as possible, taking about 20 minutes on average. It's used in screening college students for adjustment problems, and in career counseling.

RyanNow the part about appropriate use with various populations. OpenStax reports that traditional projective tests were used for decades in cross-cultural assessment, but test bias limited their usefulness. It's difficult to assess members of widely different cultural groups with instruments based on data from a single culture or race.

SoheeRobert Williams developed the first culturally specific projective test, designed to reflect the everyday life experiences of African Americans. Its updated version is the Contemporized-Themes Concerning Blacks Test, or C-TCB, with 20 color images of African American life.

RyanAnd compared with the TAT, African American test takers using the C-TCB told longer stories, with more positive feelings and stronger identification with the pictures.

SoheeThen there's TEMAS, the Multicultural Thematic Apperception Test, designed to be culturally relevant to minority groups, especially Hispanic youths. TEMAS stands for Tell Me a Story, and it's also a play on the Spanish word temas, meaning themes. It uses images and storytelling cues related to minority culture.

RyanSo if a question asks for a storytelling test whose pictures reflect the culture of Hispanic youths, that's TEMAS. Not the TAT, which also uses stories but showed cultural bias. Not the Rorschach, which uses inkblots. Not the sentence completion test.

SoheeLet's recap. The MMPI: 1943, 504 items. The MMPI-2: 1989, 567 items, restandardized on a more representative national sample. The MMPI-2-RF: 2008, 338 items, though the MMPI-2 is still more widely used.

RyanAn elevated L scale signals faking good: underreporting problems, endorsing unrealistic virtues. Self-report is efficient but open to socially desirable answering.

SoheeProjective tests are harder to fake but more time consuming. The Rorschach scored with Exner is considered valid and reliable. The TAT has little standardization and modest-to-low reliability and validity.

RyanAnd for cultural fit, the C-TCB for African American life experiences, and TEMAS for Hispanic youths.

SoheePersonality testing has a lot of names, dates and item counts. If you're feeling buried, make a single card per test, with one line for what it is and one line for its key limitation. That's all you need for most questions.

RyanYou're doing the real work of this domain, one instrument at a time. We'll see you next time on EPPP Prep, where we tackle intelligence tests.

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