Behavioral Correlates of Selected MMPI-2 Clinical, Content, and Restructured Clinical Scales

• Published in: Journal of personality assessment Vol. 90; no. 6; pp. 608 - 614
• Main Authors: Binford, Allison, Liljequist, Laura
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia, PA Taylor & Francis Group 01.11.2008; Taylor & Francis; Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Antisocial behaviour; Antisocial personality disorder; Behavior; Biological and medical sciences; Clinical psychology; Depression; Humans; Medical sciences; Mental Disorders - diagnosis; Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2; MMPI - standards; Personality psychology; Personality traits; Predictors; Psychological tests; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychometrics. Diagnostic aid systems; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Reproducibility of Results; Scales; Techniques and methods; Validation studies; Young Adult; Human; Personality test; Questionnaire; Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory; Correlation analysis; Prediction; Psychometrics; Behavior
• ISSN: 0022-3891; 1532-7752
• DOI: 10.1080/00223890802388657

In this study, we evaluated the validity of the Restructured Clinical (RC; Tellegen et al., 2003 ) scales by identifying and comparing behavioral correlates of selected RC scales (RCd, RC2, RC4), their original Clinical scale counterparts (Scale 2, Scale 4), and conceptually related Content scales (DEP, ASP, CYN) in an outpatient clinical sample (N = 150). The results of this study indicate that RC4 is a stronger predictor of several antisocial behaviors than Clinical Scale 4 or the Content Scales ASP and CYN. In contrast, RC2 demonstrated significantly lower correlations with several behaviors conceptually related to depression than its Clinical scale counterpart or DEP. DEP was highly correlated with RCd (r = .91, p < .0001), suggesting that the 2 scales may be measuring similar constructs. Overall, the results of this study demonstrate relatively few differences among the scales selected in their ability to predict extratest behaviors.