| Abstract: | Some of the contradictions in psychological research may be attributable to failure to distinguish statistical from clinical significance. 82 articles in which the MMPI was the research instrument were analyzed to see how often the results reported as significant were in fact large enough to warrant such a conclusion. Articles were classified as to whether or not the clinical interpretations were consistent with the statistical results. Excluding articles in which data were insufficient to reach an independent conclusion, 54.90% of the articles presented conclusions of clinical significance that were not supported by the data, while 45.10% reported clinical results that were supported by the data. |
