Research on feigned mental disorders indicates that severe psychopathology coupled with significant trauma histories often complicate feigning determinations, resulting in inaccuracies on otherwise effective measures. As part of malingering assessments, the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) is often used because of its excellent validation…

Common rates employed in classificatory testing are the true positive rate (TPR), false positive rate (FPR), positive predictive power (PPP), and negative predictive power (NPP). FPR and TPR are estimated from research samples representing populations to be distinguished by classificatory testing. PPP and NPP are used by clinicians to classify…

There are several strategies, or models, for combining the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) validity indicators to detect malingered psychiatric symptoms. Some scholars have recommended that an elevated F (Infrequency) score should be followed by the inspection of Fp (Infrequency-Psychopathology), whereas a recent…

The Psychopathy Checklist and Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL/PCL-R) were used to predict institutional aggression and community violence in two groups of forensic patients. Results showed that Facet 4 (Antisocial) of the PCL/PCL-R or one of its parcels consistently achieved incremental validity relative to the first three facets, whereas the…

The Symptom Validity Scale (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-FBS [MMPI-2-FBS]) is a standard MMPI-2 validity scale measuring overstatement of somatic distress and subjective disability. Some critics assert the MMPI-2-FBS misclassifies too many medically impaired persons as malingering symptoms. This study tests the assertion of…

The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of "Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory" 2nd edition (MMPI-2; Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) validity indicators in the detection of malingering in clinical patients with chronic pain using a hybrid clinical-known groups/simulator design. The…

Anxiety sensitivity has been implicated as a risk factor for the development and maintenance of panic and other anxiety disorders. Although researchers have generally assumed that anxiety sensitivity is a dimensional, rather than categorical, variable, recent taxometric research has raised questions concerning the accuracy of this assumption. The…

The purpose of this study was to produce a typology of behavior problems in preschool children. Distinct subtypes were identified through the use of cluster analytic techniques on data from the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC)--Parent Rating Scales. Analyses were based on archival data collected on a sample of 268 children, aged 2 to…

The effectiveness of the affect trait scales of the revised Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL-R) (M. Zuckerman and B. Lubin, 1985) in differentiating anxiety, mood, and schizophrenic disorders was studied with 185 psychiatric patients and 185 matched comparisons. Results indicate that the MAACL-R is valid for both global and specific…

The authors examined the Trauma Symptom Inventorys (TSI) ability to discriminate 88 student post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) simulators screened for genuine PTSD from 48 clinical PTSD-diagnosed outpatients. Results demonstrated between-group differences on several TSI clinical scales and the Atypical Response (ATR) validity scale.…

The Response to Conflict Scale, a 24-item measure of maladaptive responses to marital conflict, was evaluated psychometrically with 420 couples. The inventory showed high internal consistency, test-retest reliability, construct and discriminant validity, and classification efficiency. Clinical utility is discussed. (SLD)

The present study determined specificity and sensitivity to malingered neurocognitive dysfunction (MND) in traumatic brain injury (TBI) for several Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) Digit Span scores. TBI patients (n = 344) were categorized into one of five groups: no incentive, incentive only, suspect, probable MND, and definite MND.…

The ability of the "fake good" indicators on the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-4 (PDQ-4) (S. Hyler, 1994) for "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" Axis II disorders was studied with 99 college students. Overall classification rates of the validity scales of the PDQ-4 were too low for clinical use. (SLD)

This study examined the relation between elevation of the infrequency (F) scale on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) and the classification of psychological disorders as chronic or acute in an outpatient mental health setting. MMPI-2 and clinician rating data at time of intake were considered for 158 adult patients from an…