Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

464 Chapter 
13 
Personality
other behaviors. For instance, MMPI-2 scores have been shown to be good predictors 
of whether college students will marry within 10 years of graduating and whether 
they will get an advanced degree. Police departments use the test to measure whether 
police offi cers are likely to use their weapons. Psychologists in Russia administer a 
modifi ed form of the MMPI to their astronauts and Olympic athletes (Butcher, 2005; 
Sellbom & Ben-Porath, 2006; Sellbom, Fischler, & Ben-Porath, 2007). 
The test consists of a series of 567 items to which a person responds “true,” 
“false,” or “cannot say.” The questions cover a variety of issues ranging from mood 
(“I feel useless at times”) to opinions (“People should try to understand their dreams”) 
to physical and psychological health (“I am bothered by an upset stomach several 
times a week” and “I have strange and peculiar thoughts”). 
There are no right or wrong answers. Instead, interpretation of the results rests 
on the pattern of responses. The test yields scores on 10 separate scales, plus three 
scales meant to measure the validity of the respondent’s answers. For example, there 
is a “lie scale” that indicates when people are falsifying their responses in order to 
present themselves more favorably (through items such as, “I can’t remember ever 
having a bad night’s sleep”) (Butcher, 2005; Stein & Graham, 2005; Bacchiochi, 2006). 
How did the authors of the MMPI-2 determine what specifi c patterns of responses 
indicate? The procedure they used is typical of personality test construction—a pro-
cess known as
test standardization.
To create the test, the test authors asked groups 
of psychiatric patients with a specifi c diagnosis, such as depression or schizophrenia, 
to complete a large number of items. They then determined which items best dif-
ferentiated members of those groups from a comparison group of normal participants 
and included those specifi c items in the fi nal version of the test. By systematically 
carrying out this procedure on groups with different diagnoses, the test authors were 
able to devise a number of subscales that identifi ed different forms of abnormal 
behavior (see Figure 2). 
30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 
Score 
Social introversion-extraversion: 
Insecure social interactions 
Hypomania: 
Impulsiveness, overactivity 
Schizophrenia: 
Loss of touch with reality, bizarre delusions 
Psychasthenia: obsessiveness, 
compulsiveness, suspiciousness 
Paranoia: 
Defensiveness, suspiciousness, jealousy 
Masculinity-femininity: 
Interests related to gender 
Psychopathic deviate: 
Antisocial behavior, disregards others 
Hysteria: 
Uses physical ailments to avoid problems 
Depression: 
Hopeless, pessimistic attitude 
Hypochondriasis:
Interest in bodily symptoms