Testing a Relational Model of Psychopathology With the MMPI-2

The purpose of this study is to validate a relational, contextual selfhood model of psychopathology with the MMPI-2. Positive and negative attributions of importance to self and intimate others were hypothesized as producing four personality propensities: a functional one, self-fullness, and three dysfunctional ones or extreme deviations, selfishness or externalization, selflessness or internalization, and no-self and psychopathology. These propensities have meaning specifically in intimate (committed, prolonged, and close) relationships and may not generalize to public, short-lived, or superficial, ones. Four algorithms, composed from validity and clinical scales of the MMPI-2, evaluated whether the four personality propensities of the model can be validated with the MMPI-2. An early study using undergraduates gave some support for the reliability of classifications obtained from the four algorithms. However, the use of nonclinical cases and the lack of an external criterion to evaluate level and type of psychopathology required a larger sample of clinical cases and the use of an external criterion. Both criteria were met with a much larger clinical sample with one external criterion about type and extent of psychopathology, the Multiaxial Diagnostic Inventories (MDI) using ratings by respondents themselves and diagnoses by psychologists evaluating them. The results of the MDI tended to support possible links between the relational model and an empirical test like the MMPI-2.