A comparison study of MMPI and MMPI-2 scores with a college sample.

Abstract

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI, has been widely used and researched since its publication in 1943. In 1989, a revision of the Minnesota Multiphasic was published, the Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory-2 or MMPI-2. Critics of this newest version of the test voiced concern that the new normed group, validity and clinical scales, as weII as the scoring, may be different from the original MMPI. The present study focused on the comparability of the two tests. The sample included 135 college students who were administered both the MMPI and the MMPI-2 clinical and validity scales. After 42 scores were dropped, according to exclusion criteria, 45 men/s and 48 women/s scores were compared on the two tests. A 2x2x13 ANOVA was run on the data. Results suggest that there are few differences between the MMPI and MMPI-2. While statistically significant differences were found between the genders across scales D, Hy, Pd, Mf, Ma, K, Pa, Pt, and Sc, the size of the differences were not clinically significant, that is to say that the size of differences found would not likely substantiate different interpretations of personality. On only two scales were scores different enough to warrant clinical significance, scales Mf and Ma. In alI other cases the MMPI and MMPI-2 clinical and validity scales were comparable. These results are in agreement with previous studies by the authors of the MMPI-2.