Purpose

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 [MMPI-2] is a clinical diagnostic test that can be utilized to “detect” psychological characteristics of decisive importance for personnel screening in work positions characterized by high risk and lack of safety.

Key Features

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 [MMPI-2] is globally the most frequently applied questionnaire for assessing psychopathology in adults. It was developed by Hathaway and McKinley (1942) and includes more than 100 different scales, among which are validity scales, clinical scales, category-specific scales, as well as supplementary ones. In addition, it incorporates validity coefficients Fp, S, as well as new additional scales such as PSY-5 and Ho.

Scoring

For the scoring of responses on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 [MMPI-2], each form containing 120 indicators is scanned into the computer and subsequently processed and corrected using specialized software appropriate for the task.

Validity and Reliability

Regarding the validity and reliability of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 [MMPI-2], this instrument is a widely recognized test that is considered reliable mainly for the white middle class and for severely disturbed individuals. Its test–retest reliability ranges from 0.50 to 0.80, with the first scale, Hypochondriasis, showing the highest reliability.

References

Bigal, M. E., Sheftell, F. D., Rapoport, A. M., Tepper, S. J., Weeks, R., & Baskin, S. M. (2003). MMPI personality profiles in patients with primary chronic daily headache: a case-control study. Neurological Sciences, 24(3), 103–110.
Butcher, J. N. (2001). Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2: Manual for administration, scoring, and interpretation. University of Minnesota Press.
Butcher, J. N. (2010). Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory. The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology, 1–3.
Giromini, L., Lettieri, S. C., Zizolfi, S., Zizolfi, D., Viglione, D. J., Brusadelli, E., … & Zennaro, A. (2019). Beyond rare-symptoms endorsement: A clinical comparison simulation study using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) with the Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29). Psychological Injury and Law, 12(3), 212–224.
Hathaway, S. R., & McKinley, J. C. (1940). A multiphasic personality schedule (Minnesota): I. Construction of the schedule. The Journal of Psychology, 10(2), 249–254.
Hathaway, S. R., & McKinley, J. C. (1942). A multiphasic personality schedule (Minnesota): III. The measurement of symptomatic depression. The Journal of Psychology, 14(1), 73–84.
Tellegen, A., Ben-Porath, Y. S., McNulty, J. L., Arbisi, P. A., Graham, J. R., & Kaemmer, B. (2003). MMPI-2 Restructured Clinical (RC) scales: Development, validation, and interpretation.