Summary: The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

Have you ever wonder what some personality test consist of, are they good to rely on, and are they structured well? Well the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory as known as MMPI test is one of the longest test conducted. It is based on a true and false answer test, so there is no right or wrong way of doing it. This test consists of its validity, clinical, and content scales. I will be emphasizing on the last five clinical scales, which are paranoia, psychasthenia, schizophrenia, hypomania, and social introversion.
The Paranoia Scale and all the other four scales were originally develop to identify patients with certain symptoms that correspond to that particular scale. Paranoia is a thought processed believed to be heavily influenced

by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. According to Psych Central (2014), “Individuals with this disorder assume that other people will exploit, harm, or deceive them, even if no evidence exists to support this expectation.” The items on the test are very psychotic and the person administering this test acknowledges the fact of paranoid and delusional thoughts may exist. There are forty items on the test that relate to this part of the scale. This scale is also known by its number which is six. According to Kaplan and Saccuzzo (2012), “Meehl and others therefore suggested that the scales be identified by number rather than by name.” (p 354) People are considered paranoid if they score high on this part of the test.
The following scale is Psychasthenia Scale also known as scale 7.

According to Framingham (2011), “The Psychasthenia Scale is intended to measure a person’s inability to resist specific actions or thoughts, regardless of their maladaptive nature.” The scale measures a patient obsession, compulsion, anxiety level or phobias. Not only does it measure that but it also taps into abnormal fears the patients might have. This diagnostic term is no longer used today but it is known as the Obsession-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This part of the test has forty-eight items. People that score high on this part of the test are consider

psychasthenia.
The Schizophrenia Scale also known as Scale 8.

It is a mental disorder where a person has an abnormal behavior and cannot recognize what is real. People that are consider schizophrenic have symptoms like auditory hallucinations, false beliefs, and their social engagement is very poor. These symptoms begin to show roughly around their young adulthood year for men and late adulthood years for women. People with this mental disorder tend to live about ten to twenty-five years less than an average person and about .3-.7% of people are affected by it during their lifetime. According to Bengston (2006), “Nearly one-third of those diagnosed with schizophrenia will attempt suicide.” Schizophrenia does not only affect the ability to think but also usually contributes with chronic problems with behavior and emotion. This part of the test has seventy-eight items and is the hardest to interpret. People that score high on this test are consider

schizophrenic.
The Hypomania Scale is also known as Scale 9. This part of the test measures a person’s mood state. Patients with this disorder tend to be extremely energetic, talkative, and overly confident. It is rare when they have a period of depression. This is often associated with bipolar spectrum. Hypomania is not consider bad because it actually makes the patient feel good about themselves, but as long as the patient is not bipolar. According to Goldberg (2012), “However, for someone with bipolar disorder, hypomania can evolve into mania--or can switch into serious depression.” This test measures forty-eight items and it taps both cognitively and behavior. People are consider hypomania if they score high on this part of the test.
The last and final clinical scale would be Social Introversion also known as Scale 0. This part of the scale measures the social introversion and the social extroversion of a person. According to Framingham (2011), “A person who is social introvert is uncomfortable in social interactions and typically withdraws from such interactions whenever possible.” These type of people have more of a reserved and solitary behavior. They limit themselves to be around people and sometimes or most of the time they rather be alone. Versus people that are considered extroverted would be the opposite from introverted. They would show that they are outgoing, and talkative. Patients that score high on the test are considered introverted while patients that score low are considered extroverted. This part of the test has only sixty-nine items.
All scales have their own unique meaning and have their own items that relate to them. This does not mean a patient cannot score high in all of them, some can score high on two or more scales. For example, some patients can score high on paranoia and schizophrenia. Because this happened frequently on the MMPI they decided to revised it and reword the questions creating MMPI-2. All the items for each clinical scale expect the social introverted where kept the same. The Social Introversion Scale had seventy items but they removed one item when they revised it. Another thing they added was reading level a person should have before taking the test and they develop a separate test form for adolescents. According to Kaplan and Saccuzzo (2012), “The purpose for the revision was to update and expand the norms; revise items that were out of date, awkward, sexiest, or problematic; and broaden the item pool to extend the range of constructs that one could evaluate.” (p 355)
All ten clinical scales have a purpose for being in the MMPI test. The original makers of this test S. R. Hathaway and J. C. Mckinely purpose for making this test is to identify major psychiatric or psychological disorder. Also, an interesting fact is that this test is not only used in a mental health environment but it is often used in legal cases.