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Assessing Negative Response Bias: a Review of the Noncredible Overreporting Scales of the MMPI-2-RF and MMPI-3

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Abstract

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) instruments have a rich history of the inclusion of embedded strategies to identify invalidating response styles—such as non-responding, inconsistent responding, and noncredible underreporting or overreporting of symptoms—and to identify the impact of such response styles on substantive test score conclusions and extra-test considerations. This paper briefly reviews that history before focusing on the scales that detect overreported psychopathology, somatic complaints, and cognitive complaints on the most recent adult instruments, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) and MMPI-3. Specifically, we discuss the detection strategies used to develop MMPI-2-RF and MMPI-3 overreporting Validity Scales, evaluative contexts in which they are used, and studies of their validity. We also briefly discuss identified strengths and weaknesses and suggestions for the use of these scales in the assessment of overreporting.

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Notes

  1. In addition to the adult MMPI measures, test developers created the MMPI-Adolescent (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992) and the MMPI-A Restructured Form (MMPI-A-RF; Archer et al., 2016) to aid in the assessment of psychopathology and personality dysfunction in youth ages 12 to 18. Although not the focus on this paper, these measures also include validity indicators to detect non-responding, inconsistent responding, underreporting, and overreporting.

  2. The interested reader is referred to Ben-Porath (2012), Ben-Porath and Tellegen (2008/2011), and Tellegen and Ben-Porath (2008/2011) for a comprehensive discussion of the differences between MMPI-2 and MMPI-2-RF versions of scales.

  3. The lower-case “r” designation is used to denote scales unique to the MMPI-2-RF and compositionally different from the corresponding scale on the MMPI-2 (and now the MMPI-3).

  4. Inconsistent responding may sometimes occur as the result of intentional feigning or malingering (see Rogers et al., 1992) or an uncooperative test-taking approach, but extra-test information is needed to corroborate clinical conclusions regarding intentionality (see Burchett & Bagby, 2014). Regardless, CNS, and then VRIN-r and TRIN-r, should be interpreted before other MMPI-2-RF scales because of the drastic impact that inconsistency can have on the interpretability of overreporting, underreporting, and substantive scales (Burchett et al., 2016; Handel et al., 2010).

  5. The quasi-rare approach label is used given the scale composition that includes items rare in a normative sample but not necessarily as rare in clinical contexts.

  6. Sometimes referred to as “effort tests,” performance validity tests are performance-based (rather than self-report-based) embedded or stand-alone measures designed to assess the validity of neuropsychological test performance (Larrabee, 2012).

  7. A summary of findings regarding feigned medical complaints is excluded here because only one study was summarized.

  8. Although not reviewed here in detail, the interested reader is also referred to Whitman et al. (2020, b). These studies report mean overreporting scale scores in clinical neuropsychology and public safety candidate preemployment evaluation settings, respectively, but do not directly examine the utility of the MMPI-3 overreporting scales.

  9. Symptom validity tests are self-report-based embedded or stand-alone measures designed to assess the validity of self-reported symptoms (Larrabee, 2012).

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Funding

Danielle Burchett and R. Michael Bagby have received grant funding from the University of Minnesota Press, Test Division, to study the MMPI instruments.

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  1. Department of Psychology, California State University, Monterey Bay, Seaside, CA, 93955, USA

    Danielle Burchett

  2. University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Canada

    R. Michael Bagby

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Burchett, D., Bagby, R.M. Assessing Negative Response Bias: a Review of the Noncredible Overreporting Scales of the MMPI-2-RF and MMPI-3. Psychol. Inj. and Law 15, 22–36 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12207-021-09435-9

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