The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, commonly known as the MMPI test, is a psychological exam that looks at your personality traits and psychopathology to determine if you have any mental health disorders. It then helps licensed professionals diagnose mental health conditions. With two prior versions available (the MMPI-2 and the MMPI-2-RF), this test is a long-form, true/false test that helps you find out more about yourself. While doctors typically use psychological tests to test patients who are suspected of having mental health disorders, the MMPI has also been used in other settings, including professional evaluations and legal settings—most often as a means of either proving or disproving a client’s claims that they (or someone else) should not be held responsible for their actions. Learn More About Your Personality & Behaviors
Scale 3: Hysteria
This 60-item scale evaluates your response to stress, including both your physical symptoms and emotional response to being under pressure.
Studies have shown that people with chronic pain may score higher on the first three scales because of prolonged, heightened health concerns.
What You’ll Learn
Different aspects of human mental health and behavior are tested by behavioral health professionals with the MMPI-2 test. To assess response consistency, the Variable Response Inconsistency (VRIN) and True Response Inconsistency (TRIN) scales are evaluated. Ten clinical scales will assess ten categories of abnormal behavior and use four validity scales that help determine if answers are truthful and how the individual feels about the test-taking process in the first place. There are also several supplementary scales. All of this adds up to a more accurate understanding of the individuals personality and whether or not the test can be taken accurately as written or if it needs to be adjusted because of the validity scales’ scoring.
Hypochondriasis
The first thing tested is hypochondriasis, which evaluates vague or nonspecific complaints about the bodys functioning. These are focused on the abdomen and back and tend to persist despite having negative medical tests. In this test, which consists of 32 items, the monitoring focuses on poor physical health and gastrointestinal problems. This is an important part of the test items, as many mental health disorders involve physical symptoms.
Depression
Scale 2 (depression) measures an individual’s current mental health. Also called the depression scale, this section consists of 57 items and measures clinical depression within the tested individual. This is done by looking at the individuals morale, a lack of hope in the future, and general dissatisfaction that an individual may have with their life situation.
Hysteria
This scale consists of 60 items. With this scale, there are five aspects monitored: shyness, cynicism, neuroticism, poor physical health, and headaches. Because the scale was developed to test mental health as a whole, it is important to identify an individual’s preference toward high scores in the hysteria section, as this could indicate the presence of a host of issues, including anxiety and paranoia, which will be evaluated later in the test.
Psychopathic Deviate
Here in psychopathic deviate, the test items look at the type of social maladjustment the individual might have rather than healthy psychological adjustment and whether they have strong pleasant experiences. It will also look at complaints or problems the individual has with family and other authority figures, whether they have poor familial relationships and their level of boredom, social alienation, and self-alienation. There are 50 total questions in this section. This test can cause some debate; after all, some people associate their willingness to or interest in carrying on relationships with others with factors outside of mental health, ranging from extreme social introversion to Myers-Briggs typing to simple preference. Nevertheless, this scale measures an individual’s ability to get along and continually communicate and socialize with others.
Masculinity/Femininity
With 56 items on this test section, this scale looks at activity versus passivity, personal sensitivity, interests, hobbies, and aesthetic preferences. In general, it looks at the rigidity of the individuals conformity to stereotypes for masculine or feminine activities and roles. This scale was originally developed as part of the original University of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and came under some fire for its adherence to stereotypes. It has since been re-evaluated and altered to reflect current understandings of gender, mental health, and behavior more accurately, as evidenced by the acknowledgment of non-gendered norms via the University Of Minnesota Press.
Paranoia
At 40 items, this is one of the shortest sections in the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). It gauges interpersonal sensitivity, suspiciousness, and even the morality of self-righteousness that an individual has. This section of the questionnaire is a little different because it seeks to trip up those who may have paranoid tendencies by offering items that acknowledge paranoid thoughts or delusional thoughts. This scale was designed to detect people with the symptoms of paranoia, including suspiciousness, feelings of persecution, grandiose self-concepts, excessive sensitivity, and rigid attitudes.
Psychasthenia
With this scale, you have 48 items within the Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) that will test the inability of an individual to resist a specific type of action or thought even if they may be maladaptive. It looks at abnormal fears, difficulty in concentration, guilty feelings, and thoughts or self-criticisms in its view of obsessive-compulsive behaviors. This means this scale is designed to assess inordinate doubts, compulsions, obsessions, and unreasonable fears. Consequently, high scores in this area of the test items could indicate the presence of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or another compulsive disorder.
Schizophrenia
At 78 items, this is the longest section of the Multiphasic Personality Inventory test and evaluates strange thought processes and peculiar perceptions, poor relationships with one’s family, problems with concentration and impulse control, social alienation, disturbing questions of self-worth and self-identity, and sexual difficulties, including lack of deep interests. This portion of the test also controls for true response inconsistency to deliver the most accurate evaluation of an individual’s mental health and possible mental health conditions.
Hypomania
Next is a 46-item section that looks at more mild degrees of elated but unstable moods, psychomotor excitement, flighty thoughts, ideas and brief periods of depression, and overactivity in general, including irritability, accelerated speech, and motor activity, and egocentricity. It does this by looking at behavior and cognitive functions.
Social Introversion
Finally, theres a 69-item section that looks at how introverted or extroverted the individual is. It looks at limited social skills (withdrawal from social contacts and responsibilities), preference for being alone versus with others, and whether the individual does well with a group of friends or not.
What Validity Scores Look For
Of course, no test thats taken entirely on your own could be considered an objective scale of your capabilities and thoughts. People will often attempt to lie, fib, or otherwise tweak the test to fit their interests or desires for the outcome. Thats why there are validity sections for the test as well. There are four validity scales, or four different parts to this section of the test, and each one is important in making sure that the individual is truthful or to what degree they may not be truthful.
Taking the First Steps Towards Recovery
Suppose you believe you are living with a mental disorder. In that case, you must reach out for help as soon as possible to prevent personal injury or the possibility of mental illness increasing and growing overwhelming or becoming more difficult to handle. However, there are some things you can do beforehand to improve your chances of success and to help carry you through the process. Here are a few important things to do before reaching out.
Learn More about Your Mental Illness
Conquering a mental illness begins with fully understanding it. Even if you are not sure what you may be dealing with yet, or only feel like you really understand yourself about half the time, you can learn more about common mental health symptoms and psychological symptoms, plus what you can do to start combating their detrimental effects on your health. Learn as much as you can about mental health and what it entails. This could involve learning more about your personality type, using the Myers-Briggs test, additional Pearson assessments or other forms of personality typing to assess personality traits, as well as identifying any physical symptoms of mental illness or a mental health condition you may be exhibiting, such as symptoms described by chronic pain patients, those with difficulty sleeping, or people with regular headaches. Learn More About Your Personality & Behaviors
Scale 6: Paranoia
This scale, which has 40 questions, evaluates symptoms associated with psychosis, particularly:
High scores on this scale could indicate that you are dealing with either a psychosis disorder or a paranoid personality disorder.
FAQ
For what were MMPI self-report inventory is originally used?
For what purpose was the MMPI originally developed?
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