This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of psychometric assessment.  Assessment instruments do not diagnose, nor were they meant to.  The MMPI-2 was designed as an objective (not projective like Rorschach's ink blots) measure to assist the clinician in the psychodiagnsotic process. If you are confused about the rationale behind the empirical development of the MMPI-2, I would suggest reading my post on page 5 regarding how the items assess psychological constructs utilizing an "empirical keying" approach. 

This is an interesting take.  If you would be so kind to cite some research to back up your opinion about the MMPI?  Additionally, if 6 years of intensive doctoral training do NOT make a qualified psychologist (in your opinion), perhaps you would like to propose an alternative training model so our opinions can become "qualified"?

Twoblock wrote on Sep 6^th, 2008 at 3:53am:


I am not sure I follow? Do you mean you think the normative control group used as the baseline is biased or somehow not representative of the normal population? You realize the data was derived via statistical comparison between criterion groups (those known to have the disorder of a particular subscale) AND a "normative" control group (normal individuals to used as a baseline for statistical comparison), right? The data is not restricted to just a clinical sample. If it was, how would we know what the deviant (scored) response should be? We have to know that a normal population would consistently endorse the item differently in order to establish what the normal response would be. If the norm group didn't endorse the item different than the criterion group at a high rate, then the item is worthless. The developers threw these items out. The ones that make up the test are the ones that show statistically significant differences between norm group and criterion group. It allows us to see the true differences between the groups (normal vs psychiatric). It's NOT an absolute conclusion (as you stated), it is a "degree of probability" (the degree of probability depends on how many standard deviations the T score is elevated above the norm), because the test is using items that have extemely high statistical differentiation properties.  Your "milk" example would be an example of an item that would have been tossed out during the test's development because its ability to differentiate is highly flawed. If we take a sample of milk drinkers and run this same statistical procedure that MMPI-2 used for its development, we would see the true statistical trend. (i.e., there is no true correlation between the 2 when we do an empirical test of this hypothesis). We find out that most milk drinkers are not murders, and thus we realize your item example is a statistically weak discriminator. Items with weak statistical properties like this did not make it into the test. This prevents the occurrence of this logic leap error you are referring to. We don't use items like that. Only ones with high statistical reliability for true group differentiation. However, more importantly, you are not taking into account the real issue of the  statistical logic at work here. Its the aggregate sum of many endorsements consistent with the criterion group that raises the red flags.  Not just one endorsement, as in your example. We do not make snap judgments based on one item, or even several items.  That's why the test has so many items, 567 to be exact. You've heard the old saying "One swallow doesn't make a summer", right? Well, we have too.   

Your second paragraph demonstrates a poor understanding of multivariate statistics, and again, misconstrues the purpose of psychometric assessment. The reason we have statistics is because what you proposed is obviously impossible. Statistics are powerful estimators of group trends.  Multiple Regression, linear regression, and structural equation modeling procedures are well validated, scientifically accepted procedures for quantification of the frequency of a event or trait in a large data sample. If you have a problem with these procedures and methods, then you should have a problem with ALL of science and modern day medicine! Guess how risk factors for disease are calculated? They certianly don't survey everyone, right? Keep in mind the MMPI-2 is based on statistical base rates and likelihood of item endorsement consistent with a criterion group over a certain threshold. The threshold is set very very high (i.e., 4, or 5 endorsements consistent with the criterion group is statistically meaningless. It takes 15, sometimes 20 endorsements consistent with a criterion group to raise the T score above "normal"). When you have an subscale elevated above the designated T score, the statistics of the test tell us that this elevation being the result of chance alone (i.e., error) are very very small. This tells us that you are indeed endorsing items consistent with those with the disorder at a very very high rate with a very very small  likelihood that this could have happened by chance alone. In other words, you end up "looking like" (on paper) this clinical population. But again, this does NOT equate to diagnosis, nor does this automatically mean you would necessarily meet the clincial threshold for the disorder. You simply have alot of similarities with this particular population, since you have endorsed so many of the same opinions they did. You have alot of traits of that disorder. The clinician delineates whether there is clinically significant meaning behind these elevations after taking into account all the data from the clincial interview and any other tests that have been given. As you can see, the MMPI-2 is a powerful statistical tool, nothing more. It is just one piece of clinical information, but, one that is completely empirical, statistically objective, and highly reliable. It does NOT diagnose, but that in no way means the data derived is "meaningless." Statistically, they are very meaningful. Official diagnoses should indeed be made cautiously, taking into account the many many factors and the numerous environmental and situational variables (as you pointed out) that the clinician obtains during the clincial assessment process.

I am sorry to hear of your plight. However, you have meandered way out of my area of expertise and beyond the scope of this thread.  I can not knowledgeably discuss wild notions of amateur oncology research/cures, or the problems associated with the FDA and big pharm. I have simply tried to correct misconceptions regarding the theory, development, validity, and use of the MMPI-2.

please help me i have to take a mmpi test 
give me some pointers or a sample test???? 

Hello. Could u send me a copy of MMPI questions, I'm going to take a test on next month for my job. Thank you very much
my email is vofusi@gmail.com

One of my old supervisors was trained by Starke Hathaway at Minnesota. He was highly regarded, and my supervisor always found him to be an extemely gifted clinician and an outstanding empirically minded researcher.   

The costs of norming and restandardization of the MMPI-2 in 1989 were provided up front by Pearson. No grant money. Costs are made up by selling the test to qualified practitioners at an, admittedly, exorbitant price. That why the thing costs so darn much for psychologists.  So, when one bootlegs a copy and possibly spreads it around, they have indeed cheated Pearson.  It cost them alot to collect the norming data, so naturally they want people to buy it, so costs can be made up. 

The paradigms used for a polygrah are totally different than the the MMPI-2. They really have nothing in common.  The MMPI's main goal is the assessment of psychopathology. However, it does have the added benefit (due to its statistical properties and empirical keying construction) to detect unusual responding that suggests, the purposeful attempt to distort results. What evidence do you have that the MMPI, if used by a properly trained psychologist, is "misleading"? Or is that just "personal opinion"?