Lecture 10: Personality & Personality Disorder Assessment

What does objective personality assessment involve?

Administration of standard set of questions or statements with fixed set of potential responses

Is objective or projective personality assessment generally associated with higher standardization reliability, validity, and utility?

Objective

What does projective personality assessment involve?

Administration of unstructured or ambiguous stimuli with open-ended responses

What are responses to projective personality assessment assumed to reflect?

Client's projection of unconscious thoughts/urges/experiences onto stimuli

True or False: One of the advantages of using projective assessments is that they are difficult to fake good or bad (without prior knowledge of the test).

True

Do objective or projective personality assessments allow open-ended responses?

Projective personality assessments

Is objective or projective personality assessment generally associated with more complex and expensive administration and scoring?

Projective personality assessments

What is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-3 (MMPI-3)?

Widely used and psychometrically sound self-report inventory of personality and psychopathology

What is the Empirical Approach to objective personality test construction?

Items are included only if responses discriminate between clinical and control groups

Does the Empirical or Theoretical Approach to objective personality test construction have low content validity?

Empirical

What is the Theoretical (Content Validity) Approach to objective personality test construction?

Included items are developed to tap the concept of interest

Does the first, second, or third version of the MMPI include items that were developed using the Theoretical (Content Validity) Approach to test construction?

Second

Does the first, second, or third version of the MMPI include items that were developed using the Empirical Approach to test construction?

First

Does the first, second, or third version of the MMPI include items that were developed using both the Empirical Approach and the Theoretical (Content Validity) Approach to test construction?

Third

What do the Validity Scales on the MMPI-3 assess?

Potential threats to the interpretability of responses to the MMPI-3

What do the Clinical Scales on the MMPI-2 assess?

Psychiatric diagnoses based on older DSMs

What is a T-Score?

A score on the MMPI-3 with a mean of 50 based on a normative sample

True or False: A T-Score on the MMPI-3 is an example of norm-referenced assessment?

True

True or False: On the MMPI-3, about 5% of the population shows a T-Score of 70 or greater.

False

True or False: On the MMPI-3, the Higher-Order Scales are used to evaluate potential threats to the interpretability of responses.

False

Which Validity Scale on the MMPI-3 assesses faking bad (exaggerating problems)?

F Scale

Which Validity Scale on the MMPI-3 assesses faking good (claiming to be doing much better than they are)

L Scale

Which Validity Scale on the MMPI-3 assesses denial of psychological problems?

K Scale

Might a parent in a custody dispute who desperately wants to obtain full custody of their children show a high L or F score on the MMPI-3?

L score

Might someone who desperately wants to be deemed incompetent to stand trial show a high L or F score on the MMPI-3?

F score

Would you expect someone who is unaware of their psychological difficulties to show a high F, L, or K score on the MMPI-3?

K score

True or False: Someone who shows an F score on the MMPI-3 of 35 is exaggerating their psychological problems.

False

True or False: A disability claim based on Major Depressive Disorder might be denied if the K score on the MMPI-3 exceeds 70.

False

True or False: On the MMPI-3, the Restructured Clinical Scales provide a dimensional assessment of clinical problems.

True

True or False: Malingering refers to exaggerating psychological problems for external gain.

True

True or False: On the MMPI-3, the Higher-Order Scales are interpreted only if the Validity Scale Scores are high.

False

True or False: On the MMPI-3, the three scales assessing Emotional/Internalizing Dysfunction, Thought Dysfunction, and Behavioral/Externalizing Dysfunction are referred to as Specific Problems Scales.

False

True or False: On the MMPI-3, the most fine-grained assessment of specific problem areas an individual may be experiencing is provided by the Restructured Clinical Scales.

False

True or False: Someone with severe Major Depressive Disorder is likely to show an elevated T-Score on the Higher-Order Scale assessing Thought Dysfunction.

False

True or False: On the MMPI-3, The RCd Restructured Clinical Scale assesses demoralization.

True

True or False: The MMPI-3 Validity Scales can detect malingering.

True

True or False: The MMPI-3 assesses normative/normal individual differences in personality.

False

The reliability and the concurrent and predictive validity of the MMPI-3 are high.

True

Do Personality or Clinical Disorders in DSM-5 generally endure throughout life?

Personality Disorders

Are Personality or Clinical Disorders in DSM-5 generally stable over time and situation?

Personality Disorders

True or False: A Clinical Disorder in DSM-5 is an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture.

False

Is the onset of almost all Personality or Clinical Disorders in DSM-5 generally in adolescence or early adulthood (if not earlier)?

Personality Disorders

True or False: The diagnostic criteria for Personality Disorders are markedly similar in the main bodies of DSM-5 and DSM-IV.

True

True or False: There are four clusters of Personality Disorders in DSM-5.

False

True or False: Personality Disorders in the DSM-5 show minimal comorbidity?

False

True or False: Personality Disorders in the DSM-5 show extreme heterogeneity among patients with the same categorical diagnosis

True

True or False: Personality Disorders in the DSM-5 show temporal stability.

False

True or False: Personality Disorders in the DSM-5 show poor coverage of personality psychopathology.

True

True or False: Personality varies continuously in the main body of the DSM-5.

False

True or False: The hybrid dimensional-categorical model of personality disorders in the Appendix of DSM-5 includes ten categorical diagnoses.

False

Is the proposed (but not accepted for main body of DSM-5) model of Personality Disorders categorical, dimensional, or hybrid dimensional-categorical?

Hybrid dimensional-categorical

True or False: The hybrid dimensional-categorical model of personality disorders in the Appendix of DSM-5 includes a dimensional diagnosis of Personality Disorder Trait-Specified.

True