I have been following this website for a little while now, and have found it very enlightening. I applaud the courage of the site owner, and I have now decided to chime in as well. This site is the very definition of free speech, so keep up all the tough work, and don’t give in.
*** DISCLAIMER *** The following is meant as a philosophical discussion only, and is not to be taken as advice, nor should it be considered factual information. The information contained in this post is for academic curiosity only, is meant for educational purposes, and should only be used for research and analysis objectives only.
*** DISCLAIMER *** Asking “Why” and knowing “why” is the only real source of power. If you do not understand things, then you are truly powerless and easily manipulated.
I know because I must know. That is my purpose.
Q & A Session with Glavlit about MMPI: Q: Glavlit, why are you discussing items that are supposedly “confidential”. Isn’t this illegal, unethical, and breaking professionalism and secrecy laws in some way?
A: The information is not classified and has been public in many different forms for a great many years now. What is really unethical and unprofessional is for a few self-selected individuals to form their own cabal and decide by their own associations that they know better and are in a position to judge others, not on their actions, but on them as a person and emotional being; passing this judgement by virtue of the subject’s ignorance, naiveté and gullibility. That is the true definition of unprofessionalism and lack of ethics. Sort of like a modern day shaman’s guild.
For example, if you break the law, the law is usually clear and the police and judge will make it clear as to what you did wrong. Almost anyone can objectively understand and agree on this. In psychology, only the test evaluator really knows what “law” you broke during the test and he/she shall pass judgement on to you, without you ever knowing what was perceived to have happened, and how it really came to be about. There are no second chances, no transparency and no psych “parole”; if you fail, your application is over and you are forever labelled and condemned...that is until the next revision comes along...oops I guess there really was no such thing as condition X, now we’ll call it condition Y...and add sub-parts Y-2 and Y-4...and so it goes in psychology/psychiatry...
Q: What business do you have on here Glavlit and what is your true agenda?
A: This post is meant to be a stand-alone introductory, definite practical resource guide to the MMPI-2, for security services and intelligence job applicants. Think of it as a game, a game which you do not wish to lose, since the only one who will end up truly losing out is you, the applicant. Such is the case with both the polygraph exam process and the psychological exam process.
Ask yourself one question: if you cannot effectively deal with this grey area and set of challenges (poly and psych tests) from an information management and self-control perspective, then how will you be able to deal with the real-life job challenges and the real enemies and adversaries that will undoubtedly come along? Why you scored well is beside the point; this is a results oriented field. What truly matters are the end results.
Remember, reality is what you think and make of it…I think therefore I am…remember you only know and see what I am before you now, because I have thought it and became it, everything else is nothing more than an illusion.
Q: So what about this MMPI instrument and its well-established validity?
A: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Any testing method that relies primarily on a subject’s ignorance is not and cannot ever be scientifically valid. As they say: junk in, junk out! Just like polygraphy, psychology is not a hard science; it's much more of an art, or a pseudo-science!
Q: Where can I find the full MMPI and MMPI-2 item (question) lists in less than a minute? A: For anyone that is curious you can find the older MMPI by searching for the torrent here:
http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/110119673/mmpi?tab=summary (You will need to download a torrent client for downloading; just go to
http://www.utorrent.com/ ; uTorrent is the best client right now.)
This package contains all the older MMPI items in text files, but it is also a fully functioning program that will let you do the test, and then give you a graph at the end with the t-score profile results, also showing the lines for the cut-off scores...as in where you would be flagged if you score outside those and then be referred for a follow-up interview. It really is a nice package with the application included, and it also has a nice little summary explanation both in the readme and with the help function, that explains what each category is, and what they indicate. A very useful educational tool indeed.
The package is 276 KB so it is very small, but be sure to read the README.TXT first.
Then, you can compare the old test to the MMPI-2, and see how it has changed. The modern and complete MMPI-2 item list can be found at:
http://geisel.narod.ru/mmpi2.htm This is a fully functioning MMPI-2 applet that contains all of the items and has a very detailed report. The report is the real McCoy; it includes all the modern/current scales and categories with broken down scores, as well as the statistical corrections; and even more importantly, the critical items are highlighted and referenced to their respective scales, and the answers are also shown. The nice thing about this applet is that you can easily change any of the answers and rescore it. The rescored profile will be shown right after the previously scored profile, thus you can tinker and experiment with the item response patterns, to see what happens. This really is as close to the real profile as you can get without a psychologist in the room. The only thing missing are the profile code interpretations, but those are mostly subjective anyway, and so would be worthless.
Q: But please, the questions are so strange and I just don’t know if I really love flowers or not, or what that is supposed to measure in the first place? This is all much too confusing for me and it is giving me a headache!
A: Well the questions are grouped in smaller units, according to different psychological issues or scales.
Lucky for you there is a pdf for that! If you go and take a look at this...
http://soar.wichita.edu/dspace/bitstream/10057/1479/1/d07017.pdf ...you will find that starting at page 88, and scrolling down,
in the Appendices, all the various scales and categories are shown seperately, clearly listing the item numbers with the phrases themselves; all also showing exactly what the expected responses are, including the always tricky negative responses. It’s certainly worth a look to see just how the various factors are constructed in terms of item response patterns. A very interesting and practical read indeed!
Q: But what about The Rorscach test?
A: On a related note,
you can see all of The Rorscach test slides that are used here:
http://listverse.com/2007/12/08/top-10-inkblot-test-cards/ “Nobody agrees how to score Rorschach responses objectively. There is nothing to show what any particular response means to the person who gives it. And, there is nothing to show what it means if a number of people give the same response. The ink blots are scientifically useless.” (Bartol, 1983).
Q: But what about a real philosophical discussion on all these psychological assessment/testing issues, including lie detection?
A: Well,
you can read a very enlightening and interesting essay on here:
http://www.guidetopsychology.com/testing.htm It is well worth the read, I promise, and it’s not that long either! Schast'ya i zdorov'ya!
Udachi i khoroshego nastroeniya!
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MMPI 2 First 75 Questions out of 567 Psych Exam (Read 1087280 times)
