The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is a widely used psychological test that was originally developed in 1943 to aid in diagnosing psychological disorders. It uses a self-report format with true/false questions. The revised MMPI-2 version from 1989 includes validity and personality scales in addition to the original clinical scales. The MMPI provides a comprehensive personality profile used to assess psychopathology and adjust clinical diagnoses. It requires literacy at an 8th grade level and takes an untimed administration, with no right or wrong answers.

1. Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory
- Jeet Nadpara

2.  It is the most widely used multi-trait self report test.
 It was originally developed by Hathaway and Mckinley in 1943 to aid clinical psychologist
in the diagnosis of psychological disorder.
 They used an empirical strategy to construct MMPI.
 Empirical approach: test was designed to identify people with tendencies towards certain
psychological disorders.
 Most of the criterion group consisted of people with one or other particular psychological
diagnosis such as depression, paranoia, etc the test markers analysed the way each
criterion group answered the items then used this information to form various clinical
scales.

3. Revised version i.e MMPI 2 was published in 1989.
Subject respond booklet was updated
Validity and personality scales have been added
 This test includes 3 validity scales, 10 clinical scales and 4 special scales.
 Administration
• Can be given to individual or group
• Person should be above 16 years of age, should be literate (upto 8th std)
• There is no time limit
• Or no right or wrong answer

4. Materials
566 questions, available in different language
e.g. Q 1 : I generally prefer to attend movies alone.
Q2 : I consider myself a very nervous person
Answer is either true/false/can’t say
VALIDITY SCALE
It includes omitted items, L-scale, F-scale, K-scale
If omitted items are more than 30. i.e can’t say answers then profile should not be
interpreted

5. L scale
Average score is 4
High L score is indicative of – person trying to create favorable impression, rigid, moralistic,
over estimates self, excessive used repression and denial, poor tolerance to stress and
pressure, unoriginal in thinking, little awareness of consequences of his own action.
Low L score is indicative of – honest, functions effectively as a leader, communicates ideas
effectively, confident about self to admit minor faults.
It was constructed to detect a
deliberate attempt on the part of the
subject to present themselves in
favorable light.
Consist of 15 items which deal with
minor flaws and weakness to which
most people are willing to admit

6. F scale: infrequency scale
It is index of test taking attitude.
It is a good indicator of degree of
psychopathology.
Extra test behavior.
High F (T score > 100)score is indicative of responded to item in a random way, has paranoia,
hallucinations or delusions, poor judgment, short attention, lack of insight, psychosis, or can
be answered all items true, faking bad response, or responds to items in a random way.
It Is generally associated with elevated 6-8 (paranoid schizophrenia) clinical scales. Also seen
in adolescents.

7. If the F score is between 80-100 – it can be answered all fake, malingering, exaggerating
symptoms.
If it is between 65-80, then it indicates – deviant, social, political conviction, severe neurotic,
moody, restlessness, unstable, curious.
Low F score is indicative of socially conforming, tried to fake a good profile, free of
psychopathology

8. K scale: consist of 20 items and detects people who either deny or exaggerate
psychopathology
Score >70 may be found in educated
subjects
High score indicative of
Fake answers, false to most items, trying
to appear effective and efficient, shy and
inhibited, fearful and lack of emotional
involvement
Average scores (55-70) indicates independent, intelligent, self reliant, clean thinking and
enthusiastic, well adjusted emotionally and psychologically.
Low scores (<55) means responded true to most items, dissatisfied, ineffective, lack of
insight, socially controlling, suspicious, acute psychotic or organic.

9. Clinical scales
1. Hypochondriasis (Hs)
2. Depression (D)
3. Hysteria (Hy)
4. Psychopathic deviant (Pd)
5. Masculinitiy/feminity (Mf)
6. Paranoia (Pa)
7. Psycho-asthenia (Pt)
8. Schizophrenia (Sc)
9. Hypomania (Ma)
10. Social Introversion (Si)

11. Some deviant response test:
1. Random responding: a person may respond in idiosyncratic manner i.e. marking every
second item false or some other way.
45-70 is the normal range seen with F>100, L & K > 50.
Spike on scale 8(Sc) and subspike on scale 6(Pa)

12. 2. All true responding: extremely elevated F scale and spike at 8 and 6
3. Faking bad: L & K, 5th not elevated, rest elevated.

13. 4. Faking good: the profile shows V shaped validity scale configuration. All scale between
30-50 with 5th scale highest is seen.

14. Additional scales
1. Anxiety (A) scale: the first general factor extracted from factor analytical studies. It
reflects generalized endorsement of psychopathology.
2. Repression (R) scale: it measures the tendency to engage into denial.
3. Ego strength (Es): is index of social, occupational, functionality of the subject regardless
of level of psychopathology.
4. MacAndrews Alcoholism Scale (MAC): estimates degree of addiction proneness,
especially sensitivity to daily abuse, rather than periodic abuse.
SCORING
After completion, raw scores for each scale are converted to t score by means of profile
forms which are separate for males and females. Thus, t score are obtained on all clinical
scales. 50 is the mean t score and 10 is the standard deviation. The score may be plotted in
the following way.

16. Interpretation:
Generally scores between 45-70 are taken as normal or indicative of absence of that
particular pathological trait.
It is desirable to know the age, sex and socioeconomic status of subject and whether he
belongs to any minority culture. Any of these factors may cause elevations of some scales
and should not be taken as pathological in that case.
Elevation of single scale, if Sc scale, doesn’t mean that the subject has schizophrenia, a
configural approach is necessary in interpretation. It means interpreting the whole profile to
get total idea of personality.
Sometimes it is important to check the responses of certain individual items, since many
questions are not asked in interview, but MMPI ask these questions.

17. Commercial computer services are available with fairly sophisticated interpretation of MMPI
which should be correlated with clinical evidence.
Currently there is 2 scale approach to classification of MMPI profiles. Profiles are classified
according to their 2 highest clinical scales. This approach has not been found to result in loss
of accuracy.
The 2-point code can be used interchangeably, i.e suppose scale 1 and 2 are highest, then
code can be 1-2 or 2-1.
There are 40 possible 2 point combinations to 10 clinical scales.

18. Advantage and disadvantage of MMPI
Its atheoritical, no personality theory is associated to it.
Presence of validity test in addition to clinical and personality information.
It is most widely used and most researched
Best for assessing personality and confirming diagnosis.
Disadvantages
Lengthy
Personal nature of some questions
Ability to read and write is must
Has to be administered and interpreted by trained personnel and has to be correlated
clinically.

19. Thank you !