Implications of MMPI/MMPI--a findings for understanding adolescent development and psychopathology

The MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1943) and the MMPI-Adolescent (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992) have been used in the evaluation of adolescents for over 60 years, resulting in over 200 studies involving tens of thousands of adolescents. This literature not only informs us concerning characteristics of this test instrument but also holds important implications for our understanding of adolescent development and psychopathology. In this article, based on an invited master lecture at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality Assessment, I present several points illustrating the relevance of MMPI and MMPI--A research in enriching our understanding of adolescence.     

Auditory--visual cross-modal perception of communicative stimuli in tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella)

Research on cross-modal performance in nonhuman primates is limited to a small number of sensory modalities and testing methods. To broaden the scope of this research, the authors tested capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) for a seldom-studied cross-modal capacity in nonhuman primates, auditory-visual recognition. Monkeys were simultaneously played 2 video recordings of a face producing different vocalizations and a sound recording of 1 of the vocalizations. Stimulus sets varied from naturally occurring conspecific vocalizations to experimentally controlled human speech stimuli. The authors found that monkeys preferred to view face recordings that matched presented vocal stimuli. Their preference did not differ significantly across stimulus species or other stimulus features. However, the reliability of the latter set of results may have been limited by sample size. From these results, the authors concluded that capuchin monkeys exhibit auditory-visual cross-modal perception of conspecific vocalizations.     

Pain-induced aggression: An ethological perspective

Pain-induced aggression has been studied mainly in animals, but generalizations are made to human aggression, noteably in Berkowitz’s “aversive-stimulation” view. This review reevaluates the motivational basis of pain-induced attack by considering it from an ethological perspective. Studies supporting the view that shock-induced attack is fear-motivated are briefly reviewed before consideration of evidence that does not support this view, from naturally-ocurring examples of pain-induced attack, and from examples of sex and hormonal effects. A reconcilliation between the apparently conflicting views is suggested by distinguishing between the functional (competitive-protective) dimension and the causal (offensive-defensive) dimension. It is proposed that pain-induced attack is protective in function but can be offensive or defensive (or both) in its form; the offensive form is only rarely observed under laboratory conditions. The implications of this view are discussed (1) for the use of shock-induced fighting as an animal model of aggression; and (2) for studies of human pain-induced aggression. Ethical issues surrounding shock-induced aggression research are considered.     

Emotional State,Physical Well-Being,and Performance in the Presence of Feigned Ambient Odor1

Measures of emotional state, physical well-being, performance, and room odor were obtained from subjects given the suggestion of a pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral ambient odor (n= 30 per condition). The hedonic quality of the feigned odor altered self-reports of pleasure, but not dominance or arousal. Subjects given the pleasant suggestion reported a more positive mood. The number of reported physical health symptoms differed as a function of the hedonic quality of the feigned odor. The category corresponding to the fewest number of physical symptoms was predominated by subjects in the pleasant condition, while subjects in the unpleasant condition predominated the category with the greatest number of symptoms. Subjects predicted higher task performance in the unpleasant condition, but no differences were found among conditions in actual performance. Room odor ratings differed in directions consistent with the hedonic quality of the feigned odor. The effects of olfactory suggestion may be relevant to the psychosomatic component of sick building syndrome and to the perception and marketing of fragrance.     

Are critical items "critical" for the MMPI-A

This article examines one aspect of the potential usefulness of critical items to the: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory -Adolescent (MMPI-A). Endorsement frequency data are presented on the Koss-Butcher (1973) and the Lachar-Wrobeli (1979) critical items for Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) adult normative and clinical samples and for MMPI-A adolescent normative and clinical samples. Adolescents in both normal and clinical samples endorse critical items with a higher frequency than do normal adults. Further, results demonstrated that significant differences were uniformly found between the endorsement frequencies for normative versus clinical subjects for the MMPI-2 samples, whereas similar comparisons for the MMPI-A samples typically showed that adolescents in clinical setting did not endorse critical items more frequently than normal adolescents. These findings indicate that it may be difficult to construct critical item lists for adolescents based on the type of empirical methodology used with adults in which items are selected based on endorsement frequency differences found between comparison group. Beyond the issue of the technical difficulty in creating a critical item list for adolescents, several conceptual concerns are raised regarding the application of critical items to the MMPI-A. It was noted that the concept of "critical items" has not been we11 defined, and both the reliability and validity of critical items may be limited in adolescent populations.     

Does Teaming Obscure Low Performance? Exploring the Temporal Effects of Team Performance Diversity

Organizations are increasingly using team-based projects to achieve goals. As such, it is important to understand how team members (e.g., their differences) influence team outcomes such as effectiveness. In the present study, we examine performance diversity, differences in members’ past performance, as an antecedent to team effectiveness. In addition, we assessed the length of time the group performed together as a moderator and social loafing among members as a mediator of the performance diversity—team effectiveness relationship. Using multisource data for 673 individuals in 139 project teams, we found that performance diversity had an increasingly negative effect for groups that were together longer. Specifically, greater diversity resulted in more social loafing, thereby diminishing team satisfaction and supervisor-rated team performance.     

Predicting behavioral outcomes with two psychological assessment methods in an outpatient pain management program

Abstract

In research with pain patients, the determination of psychological variables that can predict physiological gains would be helpful for practitioners doing assessments on pain patients. The present study used the Millon Behavioral Health Inventory (MBHI) and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) to assess whether gains in time sitting, time standing, number of stairs climbed, time on a treadmill, treadmill speed, grip strength in both hands, and a composite score of these variables could be successfully predicted for patients at a 20-day outpatient multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation program. Discriminant analyses demonstrated that both the MBHI and the MMPI were successful in this prediction. Advantages for using the two instruments singly and together in assessment procedures and suggestions for future research are made.     

An Investigation of the Psychometric Properties of the MMPI–2 Restructured Clinical (RC) Scales With Mental Health Inpatients

The major hypothesis that quantity, quality, and control of primary process contents would be different in two groups of artists as a function of age and experience were tested by means of the Rorschach test. The Holt system of scoring was employed. A group of art students, mean age 21.7, and a group of renowned, mature artists, mean age 41.7, were compared. It was found that while quantity of primary process did not differ, the quality, density, defense demand, efficiency of defenses and controls, form level and REGO significantly differentiated experienced from inexperienced artists.