MMPI personality differences in various populations of the unwed mother

✍ Scribed by W. M. Nelson III; J. Gumlak; P. M. Politano

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 461 KB
• Volume: 42
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9762
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-4679(198601)42:1<114::aid-jclp2270420117>3.0.co;2-t

✦ Synopsis

This study was designed specifically to assess the personality differences between pregnant unwed young women who had a varying number of pregnancies and sexually active, but nonpregnant females. The MMPI was administered to 42 volunteer unmarried women assigned to one of the three following groups: Primigravida (pregnant for the first time), multigravida (pregnant for at least the second time), or to a "control" group (sexually active with no pregnancies). A discriminate function analysis was employed to predict group membership on the basis of the MMPI scales, which were used as predictor variables. The first function consisted of the Hs, PT, and Sc scales, which accounted for 64.33% of the total variance. A second function consisted of K, Hs, HY, MF, PA, PT, Sc, and MA scales, which accounted for 35.67% of the total variance. The clinical implications of the first function (used primarily because it produced a higher degree of predictability with fewer scales) were discussed in terms of its ability to distinguish personality characteristics among the three groups of young women.