A comparison of several MMPI indices to differentiate psychotics from normals
✍ Scribed by William D. Winter; Marcus Stortroen
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1963
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 343 KB
- Volume
- 19
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0021-9762
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
There have been a number of special scales and indices derived from the MMPI to measure degree of pathology. One of the most recent of these is the set of sixteen rules developed by Meehl and Dahlstrom ( 3 ) for differentiating neurotic from psychotic MMPI records. The present writers felt it might be instructive to compare the efficacy of these rules with that of several older scoring procedures in a different situation from the one in which they were meant to serve, that is, to differentiate normals from psychotics. METHOD Subjects. We had in our files the MMPI records of 75 white males used in a previous study(9). Our sample consisted of 25 adequately functioning normals; 25 normals who were hospitalized with an acute physical illness which was not obviously psychosomatic in origin; and 25 hospitalized schizophrenics who were testable but clearly psychotic. Each S was tested and interviewed by the same examiner,' and the Ss were matched for age and education. Their age range was 17-45 (median 26.6), and their education ranged from 7-17 years of school completed (median 12.2).
M M P I indices.
Ten indices were used. All were based on K-corrected T-scores and short-form group booklets. All records with normal ? scores were included. Some are specific indices of psychosis; others have not been described as such, although they have been used with psychotics. They are listed here roughly in descending order of complexity and amount of test information they use: