1 - National Criminal Justice Reference Service

APPENDIXF
THE MINNESOTA IvfULTIPHASIC PERSONALITY INVENTORY
The Minnesota MultiphasiC' Personality-Inventory"(MMPI) was first publisbed by:Hatbaway
and McKinley.in .1941. This early ~~ersion"has 566 true-false questions aneLstandardized
scale scores for adults and adolescents. A newer versio~ the MMPI-2, was released in
1989 with standardized scale scores for adults only. It has 567 questions.
There are fourteen sca1'es commonly sc~red for both versions of the MMPI. Four are
validity scales and ten are clinical scales. The brief descriptions of the scales have been
taken from Megargee and Bohn (1979).
The four 1I/alidity scales are as follows:
? Omnot say Total number of items which the test taker marks both "true"
L. Lie
F. Frequency
K
Correction
and "false" or omits.
Measures deliberate attempts by the subject to present himseif
in a good light.
Items rarely answered in the scored direction by normals.
Indicates random responding or deliberate attempts by the
subject to present himself in a bad light.
Indicates a general test-taking attitude of defensiveness about
psychological weaknesses. The K-score is used as a correction
to certain clinical scales (1,4,7,8 r 9--see below) to improve their
ability to discriminate normal from abnormal profiles.
The ten clinical scales include the following:
1. Hypochondriasis (Hs) ·Reflects ahnormal concern over bodily functions 'and
preoccupation with physical complaints.
2. Depression (D)
Reflects a pessimistic world view, hopelessness, selfdeprecation,
3. Hysteria (Hy)
possibly suicidal.
Measures the tendency to use physical or mental
symptoms to avoid stressful conflicts. Often
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