OBJECTIVE PERSONALITY TEST

 Objective personality tests include unambiguous test items,

offer clients a limited range of responses, and are objectively
scored. Most often, the objective personality tests that clinical
psychologists use are questionnaires that clients complete
with pencil and paper (or in some cases, on a computer). They
typically involve a series of direct, brief statements or
questions and either true/false or multiple-choice response
options in which clients indicate the extent to which the
statement or question applies to them.
 By contrast, projective personality tests feature ambiguous
stimuli and an open-ended range of client responses. They are
based on the assumption that clients reveal their personalities
by the way they make sense of vaguely defined objects or
situations.

MMPI

 The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-

2) is both the most popular and the most psychometrically
sound objective personality test used by clinical
psychologists.
 It is used in many countries and cultures around the world
and has been translated into dozens of languages.
 The format of the MMPI-2 is simple: The client reads 567
self-descriptive sentences and, using a pencil-and-paper
answer sheet, marks each sentence as either true or false
as it applies to him or her. The items span a wide range of
behavior, feelings, and attitudes.
 The MMPI-2 is a revision of the original MMPI, which
was published in 1943. When Starke Hathaway and J. C.
McKinley, the authors of the original MMPI, began their
work in the 1930s, they sought an objective way to measure
psychopathology.
 Numerous questionnaires of this type were available at
that time, but none were based on a solid empirical
foundation as the MMPI would be. When creating a
personality test, it is relatively easy for an author to create
a list of items that should, theoretically, elicit different
responses from “normal” and “abnormal” people of various
categories.
 Hathaway and McKinley chose to take on a greater
challenge: to create a list of items that empirically elicit
different responses from people in these normal and
abnormal groups.
 Hathaway and McKinley succeeded in creating such a list
of items by using a method of test construction called
empirical criterion keying.
 Essentially, this method involves identifying distinct groups
of people, asking them all to respond to the same test
items, and comparing responses between groups. If an item
elicits different responses from one group than from
another, it’s a worthy item and should be included on the
final version of the test.
 If the groups answer an item similarly, the item is
discarded because it does not help categorize a client in
one group or the other. When empirical criterion keying is
used, it doesn’t matter whether an item should, in theory,
differentiate two groups; it matters only whether an item
does, in actuality, differentiate two groups
 For Hathaway and McKinley, the distinct groups on which
potential items were evaluated consisted of people who had
been diagnosed with particular mental disorders (e.g.,
depressed, paranoid, schizophrenic, anxious, sociopathic,
and hypochondriacal groups) and a group of “normals” who
did not have a mental health diagnosis at all.
 Although they began the process with more than 1,000
potential items, only 550 were retained after the empirical
criterion keying method was complete.
 Each of those 10 groups of items represented a clinical
scale, and the higher a client scored on a particular scale,
the greater the likelihood that he or she demonstrated that
form of psychopathology.
 Another important feature introduced by the MMPI (and
retained in the MMPI-2) was a way to assess clients’ test-
taking attitudes. Hathaway and McKinley realized that
self-report instruments are vulnerable to insincere efforts
by the client. Some clients may intentionally exaggerate
their symptoms (“fake bad”) to appear more impaired than
they really are; others may intentionally minimize their
symptoms (“fake good”) to appear healthier than they
really are.
 The MMPI and MMPI-2 contain three specific validity
scales: L (Lying, suggesting “faking good”), K
(Defensiveness, also suggesting “faking good”), and F
(Infrequency, suggesting “faking bad”).
 Other improvements included the removal or revision of
some test items with outdated or awkward wording.
 MMPI was created for younger clients. Whereas the
MMPI-2 is appropriate only for adults (18 years and
older), the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) was designed for clients
aged 14 to 18 years.
 It is a true/false, pencil-and-paper test consisting of 478
items. Some of its items are shared with the MMPI-2, and
some are original items targeting common teen issues such
as school, family, substance use, and peer relations. It
yields the same validity scales and clinical scales as the
MMPI-2.
 In addition to the 10 clinical scales, a number of additional
scales—known as supplemental scales and content
scales—have been developed to measure other, often more
specific aspects of personality and pathology.
 An unusual but interesting use of the MMPI-2 has been
described by Stephen Finn and his colleagues: Therapeutic
Assessment (TA). As the name implies, TA involves the use
of psychological testing—including feedback about the
results—as a brief therapeutic intervention. Early in his
career, Finn noticed that his assessment clients often
seemed to benefit from the feedback session in which he
explained the results of their testing.

MILLON SCALES

 The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI; Millon, 1983)

was derived from Millon’s biopsychosocial theory of
personality and psychopathology (Millon, 1969, 1981). In the
original model, personality types were derived based upon
two dimensions: primary sources of reinforcement and pattern
of coping behavior.
 the MCMI-III is based is grounded in evolutionary theory.
According to this view humans are predisposed to behave in
certain ways because these behaviors have survival
significance.
 Behaviors are naturally selected because they increase the
probability of survival and/or reproduction.
 Influenced by sociobiologists who examine the interaction
between biology and social functioning.
 It holds four basic domains in which evolutionary principles
are exhibited: existence, adaptation, replication, and
abstraction. Existence refers to the tendency to engage in
life-enhancing or life-preserving behaviors. The domain of
adaptation is viewed as a polarity between passive and active
strategies for coping with one’s circumstances. In the
Replication domain, the goal is to produce and protect
offspring. The two ends of this polarity are marked by
strategies to promote oneself at one end and strategies to
protect and nurture others at the other end. The classification
system proposed by Millon is embedded in the polarities
derived from these first three domains. The basic polarities
are pleasure-pain (existence), passive-active (adaptation), and
other-self (replication).
 The MCMI was developed and validated in three stages.
The first stage of validation Millon calls “theoretical-
substantive.” In this stage, the items are generated to
represent Millon’s theoretical framework. The items for each
scale were developed on the basis of theoretically derived
definition of each syndrome. In the second stage of validation
(“internal structural”), the degree to which the items
making up a scale hang together empirically is examined. In
the third phase of the validation (“external-criterion”), the
empirical relationship between the scales and a variety of
other measures of the syndromes are examined
 MCMI-III. The MCMI-III is the latest version of Millon’s scale
for assessing adult personality disorders and psychopathogy.
The scale was normed on a clinical population. the scale
scores are transformed into base-rate (BR).
 The point of BR scores is not to define where a person falls on
a continuum; rather it is to indicate whether he or she belongs
to a particular diagnostic category. The transformation of raw
scores to BR scores is based upon estimates of the prevalence
of the various personality disorders and clinical syndromes in
the population.
 The MCMI-III has 175 items, which are written at about an
eighth-grade reading level. Most clients can complete the
scale in 30 minutes or less. There are a total of 28 scales,
which are organized into five groups. The instrument is best
known as a measure of personality disorder. There are eleven
Clinical Personality Patterns that closely coincide with
the Axis II personality disorders in the DSM-IV.
 The primary purpose of the MCMI-III is to assist mental
health professionals in making diagnostic and treatment
decisions for individuals who present with emotional and/or
interpersonal difficulties. Not normal populations.
 It is not appropriate to use the instrument as a general
measure of personality functioning for normal subjects. Used
criminal and civil forensic settings.
 Offers two scoring options. For a small fee, it will
computer-score all 28 scales and provide a profile that
includes scale cut-off lines indicating the BR score of 75 and
85. For a larger fee, it will provide not only the profile but a
detailed computer-generated analysis of the personality and
symptom picture with suggestions for psychotherapy.
 Considerably shorter and takes much less time to complete
than the MMPI.
 The measure can also be used for outcome assessment.
 Limitations include:
- Item overlapping
- Difficulty in hand scoring
- Pts with anxiety and depression frequently produce
elevations on scales that purport to measure stable
personality characteristics
- Cannot be used with normal populations.