Personality Assessment Quiz 4

Ethnicity

based on a common heritage of persons and is the foundationof culture

ethnic socialization practices

transmission of values, beliefs, and information about ethnicity

culture

the human made part of the environment where ways of life are transmitted from one generation to another 

acculturation 

the process of cultural change 

racism

oppression of an ethnic group

social class

group designations within a society, typically based on income, wealth, occupation, and educational attainment

test bias 

tendency of some tests to yield scores dependent on the group the person belongs to rather than on person’s actual ability or personality 

social learning processes

processes that demonstrate how cultural environment and cognitive factors interact

observing

attend closely to the behavior of someone else

sharing 

when information is communicated from one person to antoher for the purpose of mutual understanding 

transmitting

efforts to teach someone something

participating

behaviors that are engaged in by two or more persons at the same time

social cognitive theory 

human behavior and learning is influenced by personal, behavioral, and environmental factors, cognition plays a role in encoding and performing behaviors, personality development is influenced by the environment and individuals shape the environment 

Why is it important to consider cultural variables when you evaluate children and families?

Cultural norms may influence how people present and deal with psychological isues, influence how willing someone is to open up to someone else, response to treatment, values, acculturation process

acculturation phase 1

traditionalism: persons maintain and practice traditions of their culture of origin

acculturation phase 2 

transitional period: persons partake of their own culture and the new culture but question both 

acculturation phase 3

marginality: persons develop anxiety if unsuccessful in meeting demands of their own culture of origin or the new culture and may become isolated

acculturation phase 4

assimilation: persons embrace traditions of the new culture and reject practices and customs of their own culture

acculturation phase 5 

biculturalism: person practices both their culture of origin and the new culture (adapting new customs and maintaining customs from their original culture) without losing sense of identity

evaluating child’s and family’s degrees of acculturation

• in which phase are the child and members of the family

• how are child and family dealing with separation from their culture of origin

• what are their attitudes towards life in the us

• what are their hopes and aspirations

• what types of difficulties, if any, are they having with becoming acculturated?

• how stable are the traditional roles in the family, and if relevant, how rapidly are these roles changing?

• Acculturative stress inventory for children (Suarez-Morales et al., 2007)

stages of learning english

• preproduction phase

• nonverbal phase

• early production phase

• speech emergence phase

• fluency phase

preproduction phase

child clings to native language and speaks only to others who speak that language but acquire receptive english vocabulary

nonverbal phase 

child is shy and unwilling to participate in activities- still building english vocabulary 

early production phase

child begins to speak english, but only 1 or 2 words or short phrases 

speech emergence phase

child begins to use longer phrases and simple sentences

fluency phase

child speaks productive english

response bias 

a characteristic manner of responding - also referred to as a response set or response style 

Acquiescent response set

child tends to agree with an item regardless of content

cautious response set

child tends to not guess when not sure of the answer

deviant response set 

child tends to respond in a deviant, unfavorable, uncommon, or unusual way 

dissenting response set

child tends to disagree with an item regardless of content

Extremity Response set

child tends to agree strongly or disagree strongly with items

Faking-bad response set or malingering response set 

child wants to present an unfavorable impression 

faking-good response set

child tends to intentionally create a favorable impression

gambling response set

child tends to guess when not sure of the answer

midpoint response set 

child tends to favor moderate responses to items 

random response set

child tends to respond randomly

social desirable response set

• child tends to answer items in what they perceive as the right/appropriate/most socially accepted way

• Note: different from faking-food, which is an intentional attempt to create a favorable impression, whereas a socially desirable resonse set is a more passive attempt to please the evaluator

honest/candid response set 

child tends to answer items accurately 

Bachman et al. 2010 and response styles

it is difficult to interpret rating scales when culturally and linguistically diverse groups have different response style

• According to this study:

  • when completing rating scales, african american adolescents use intermediate options

  • european americans and asian american adolescents use least extreme options

Scores reflect a complex interaction of several variables 

• characteristics of the scale or checklist used (wording of items, reading level required, completion time, norm sample, date of standardization) 

• Child’s age, sex, ethnicity, reading ability, response style, and degree of openness 

• the raters or informants characteristics (sex, expectancies, recall ability, openness, mental health, comprehension of items, accuracy of observation, response style, relationship to and knowledge about the child) 

• the evaluator’s characteristics (sex, ethnicity, ability to establish a rapport, knowledge of assessment instruments, and other assessment skills) 

• Setting for evaluation (Screening, diagnosis, placement, intervention, program evaluation)

MMPI development

• Hathaway and McKinley 1943

• developed at the university of Minnesota hospitals

• popularity due to ease of use (true-false format)

• innovative validity scales and ability to assess the person’s test taking attitudes

Minnesota normals

• Hathaway and McKinley found the “Minnesota Normals” in waiting rooms, corridors, and the cafeteria at the University of minnesota hospital —→ normative sample

• made up of friends and family members of patients being seen at the hospital

• those that were under a doctors care were found ineligible

• the minnesota normal’s mental status was never determined despite the misleading nickname- they really did not know if the people in the normative population truly did not have a diangosis, but they went ahead and counted someone as normal if they werent under a doctors care

The MMPI_A

• downward extension of the mmpi to be used with adoelscents

MMPI largest longitudinal study

• Hathaway and Monachesi (1953, 1956, 1961, 1963)

• tested 15,300 adolescents in the 9th grade throughout minnesota

• approximately 89% of the 9th grade adolescents attended public schools

• this research provided sensitivity of the MMPI to adolescent problems

• despite various efforts to develop the original MMPI norms for adolescents, many continued to use adult norms for interpreting adolescent profiles

• tended to characterize adolescents as pathological rather than if adolescent norms were used

Hathaway and Monachesi (1963) study 

• administered the MMPI to about 3,000 9th and 12th grade students

• administered MMPI during the 1947 and 1938 school year 

• found that 9th grades scores with K-corrections on Scales 4 PD (psychopathic deviate, Scale 8 Sc (schizophrenia), and scale 9 Ma (hypomania, were 10 points higher than the sample of adults 

• thus, if adult norms were used, it was less likely that the clinical scales were below a t-score of 70 in comparison to normal adults 

MMPI-A norms

• issue of which set of norms to use was resolved with the development of the MMPI-A and normative data collected during the mid- 1980s was intended to match the census data of that period

• University of Minnesota press discontinued publishing the MMPI in the fall of 1997

• the mmpi-a representes restandardization of the mmpi to create a version specifically for adolescents

• items on the validity and clinical scales on the mmpi basically were unchanged on the MMPI-A except for the F (infrequency scale) and scale 5 (Mf) Masculinity-femininity scale

Normative data

• middle and high school students who lived at home, between 14 and 18 years of age

• 1600 students, 76.2% caucasian, 12.4% african american, 2.9% asian american, 2.9% native american, 2.1% hispanic

• 65% were from homes with both parents

• 23% were from homes with single mother

• over 60% had at elast one parent with some college education

Do you use the mmpi-a or the mmpi-2 for 18 year olds?

if the 18 year old is still living hin their parens home and attending high school— mmpi-a 

if the 18 year old is living independently, including in college or the military, the mmpi-2 i s more appropriate 

I am evaluating a 20-year old patient who acts more like a 16-year-old- would the mmpi-a be more appropriate?

No

general info about mmpi-a

• broad based measure

• 6th grade reading level

• 14-18 years

• 478 true-false questions

• administration time: 45-60 minutes

• english, spanish, and 10 other languages.

Validity scales: CS(?)

Cannot say- consists of the total number of items an adolescent fails to answer or answers both true and false 

• can query carefully about omitted items- especially danger to self and danger to other items 

• do not score if 30 or more items are omitted 

• if most omitted items are after 350, you can go ahead and score it because the validity indexes and 10 scales all happen in the first part of the assessment 

Validity scales: VRIN

Variable response inconsistency 

• total number of items answered inconsistently 

validity scales: TRIN- true response inconsistency

• subset of VRIN

• response inconsistency scale is comprised of item pairs whose content is directly opposite

• if adolescent responds inconsistently “true” to both items, 1 point is added to the score

• if adolescent responds inconsistently false to both, 1 point is subtracted

High TRIN score followed by the letter “T” indicates tendency to indiscriminately answer true to items

high TRIN score followed by the letter “F” indicates tendency to indiscriminately answer “false” to items

T scores < or equal to 69T or 69F suggest consistent responding

T scores > or equal to 75T/75F are invalid and should not be interpreted

F infrequency scale

• detects whether the test taker is responding in an exaggerated manner

• people who endorse many seemingly unrelated and rarely endorsed items are suspected of exaggerating responses

• high scores suggest extreme responding that likely results in an invalid profile

• can be related to reading difficulties, confusion, inconsistent or random responding, symptoms exaggeration (malingering) or possible serious psychopathology

Guidelines for interpretation of the F scale 

• T score lower than 45 presenting a positive image 

• T scores <59 suggest adolescent was cooperative and is valid profile 

• T scores 60-65: common in adolescents with problems 

• T scores 75-89: adolescent endorsed an unusual number or rare and varied items. Some inpatients endorse many extreme symptoms and significant psychopathology 

• T scores of 90-99: scores in this range indicate adolescent responded to the MMPI-A items by endorsing a wide variety of extreme and rare symptoms, endorsing extreme negative symptoms or psychotic or extremely disorganized responding 

• T scores >100 are extremely unusual and invalid 

F1 and F2 subscales

F1- front of the booklet, F2- back half of the booklet

• gives a picture of infrequent responding to items at the beginning versus at the end of the booklet

• important distinction because the basic scales appear inthe first 350 items and can be interpreted even in the presence of invalid response set in the second half

L- Lie Scale

• measure of “virtuous” test taking attitude — presenting self in overly positive light

• adolescents who score high on L endorse items unlikely because of their extremely virtuous claims

• desiring to create an unrealistically favorable view of his/her adjustment

• T score <60: valid

• T- score 61-69: valid, but approach is defensive or naive

• T score: 70-74: marginally valid with attempting to create favorable impression

• T score > or equal to 75 are invalid due to underreporting symptoms

• some persons from religious backgrounds may have more elevated L scale

K-defensiveness scale

• developed to assess person’s willingness to disclose personal information

• persons with low scores are likely responding in open manner

• moderately high reflect marginally valid but reluctant to disclose

• T score <45 valid, T score 46-55 valid, T score 60-69 are valid and may have been unwilling to share and somewhat defensive; t scores 70-74 invalid but can be interpreted with caution; T scores >75 completely invalid

determining validity

• start with the CS(?) scale

• was the VRIN valid?

• The F,L and K scales provide us with different info

• look at F1 and F2 to see if there is a change in responding form the front of the booklet to the back of the booklet

codetype 

• development and understanding of people and types of problems they might be facing by identifying elevated clusters 

• look for elevations above 65 

• if there are multiple points above 65, identify the two hgihest elevated points (codetype) 

Spike

• when there is only one elevation above 65

profile & interpretation

the more similar the adolescents profile is to the prototypical codetype, the greater confidence we have in our interpretation

Welsh coding 

• a way to report codes that will prevent most poeple who really have not studied the MMPI from understanding/reinterpreting your data 

• allows you to provide all of the relevant information to another clinician 

What were the clinical scales designed for?

The clinical scales were designed to differentiate healthy non-clinical adults from individuals in mental hospitals with ten common symptom clusters

Scale 1 elevations 

hypochondriasis-

• somatic and vague health concerns 

• somatic response to stress 

• likely problems with neurotic symptoms 

• self-centered, negative 

• demanding (need for support from others) 

• little insight into problems 

• avoid delinquent behaviors 

• academic and adjustment concerns likely 

Scale 2 elevations (depression)

• hopeless, dissatisfied, and unhappy

• apathy is high and lack of interest in activities

• guilty feelings, shame, and critical of self

• low self-confidence

• likely experiencing a sense of social withdrawal and isolation

• may be likely to enter therapy to reduce distress

Scale 3 elevations (conversion hysteria)

• concerned about health

• success oriented (School) socially involved, friendly

• reaction to stress may result in physical somatic concerns

• self-centered, egocentric, immature 

• higher degree of success 

• strong needs for affection, attention, and approval 

• high SES 

• psychologically naive 

Scale 4 elevations (psychopathic deviate)

• poor school performance and behavior problems at school 

• aggressive and externalizing behaviors 

• more common in urban, separated, or divorced families 

• difficulty internalizing cultural and societal norms 

• inability to delay gratification 

• poor planning 

• low tolerance for frustration 

• prone to boredom 

• tends to solve problems aggressively 

• difficulty with parents and family 

• possible use/abuse of alcohol and/or drugs 

• ability to make positive impressions 

• extroverted 

• free from guilt and remorse 

• little evidence of affective distress 

Scale 5 elevations (masculinity/femininity) -males

• intelligent, successful

• insecure or conflict regarding SI

• comfortable in expressing feelings

• passive and submissive in relationships

• low likelihood of antisocial behavior

Scale 5 elevations - females

• assertive

• competitive, tough

• problems with school conflict

• greater behavioral problems

• “masculine” interests in sports and academics

SCALE 6 ELEVATIONS (PARANOIA) >70

Anger hostility • Reality testing is poor • Delusions of persecution • Ideas of reference • psychosis or schizophrenia possible • social withdrawal

SCALE 6 ELEVATIONS (PARANOIA) 60-69

Interpersonal Sensitivity • Suspicion and distrust • Tendency toward hostility • problems in school • increased disagreements with parents • difficulty in establishing relationships for therapy

SCALE 7 ELEVATIONS (PSYCHASTENIA)

Anxious • Self-critical • feelings of insecurity • uncomfortable with feelings • introspective and ruminative • Difficulty with decision making • rigid and conscientious • > 75 when extremely elevated obsessive and compulsive

SCALE 8 ELEVATIONS (SCHIZOPHRENIA)

Withdrawn, socially isolated • Confused and disorganized • schizoid features (bizarre cognitions etc) • feelings of inferiority, incompetence • feelings of unhappiness and frustration • apt to be rejected and teased by peers • poor school performance and success • vulnerable and upset • difficulty entering into relationships • unconventional nonconforming

SCALE 9 ELEVATIONS 9 (HYPOMANIA)

fast, excessive activity • likes to act • Impulsive, restless • Big ideas • outgoing, extroverted, and gregarious • talkative • self-centered, egocentric • euphoric mood

SCALE 0 ELEVATIONS (SOCIAL INTROVERSION)

Social introversion • low self-esteem • reserved, timid • decreased probability of acting out • submissive, compliant, accepting of authority • insecure • reliable, dependable, cautious • lacking in social skills

FIVE FACTOR MODEL WITH THE MMPI-A

These were originally developed on the MMPI-2.

• 104 items that were rationally selected

• Aggression - Detachment (agreeableness)

• Psychoticism - Psychoticism (openness)

• Disconstraint – Disinhibition (Conscientiousness)

• Negative Emotionality – Negative Affectivity (neuroticism)

• Introversion - Introversion (extraversion)

WHY PSY-5 IS IMPORTANT

It aligns with the DSM-5 and the Big 5 Personality Traits

AGGRESSION (AGGR)

Poor temper control • Aggressive • Exhibit externalizing behaviors

PSYCHOTICISM (PSYC)

Presence of psychotic like behaviors • Appear anxious or obsessive

DISCONSTRAINT (DISC)

Higher likelihood of externalizing behaviors • Greater likelihood of alcohol and drug use • Greater likelihood of delinquency

NEUROTICISM - NEGE (NEGATIVE EMOTIONALITY)

• Anxious, Tense, Worried • Guilt • Excessive reliance on adults

INTROVERSION (INTR)

Social Isolation • Interpersonally uncommunicative

ANXIETY

High scorers tend to have problems with concentration, confusion, and an inability to stay on task. May be concerned about losing their mind. They are aware of their problems.

OBSESSIVENESS

Adolescent who are high scorers have difficulty with intrusive thoughts, ruminative behavior, difficulty making decisions, dread change in their life. May regret previous actions.

DEPRESSION

High scorers are reporting many symptoms of depression. They are dissatisfied with life. Future seems hopeless, life is neither worthwhile or interesting. They may wish they were dead. Suicidal ideations are possible

HEALTH CONCERNS

Physical health is worse • May be experiencing nausea, vomiting, stomach spells, paralysis, sensory, or skin problems • In nonclinical samples high scorers have higher rates of misbehavior, poor academics, and greater number of school problems

ALIENATION

Life is unfair and people do not understand me. • I get a raw deal from life?

BIZARRE MENTATION

Hallucinations • Strange experiences • Believe something is wrong with them • People stealing their thoughts, control them, or make them do things • May believe in ghosts

ANGER

Swearing, smashing things, starting fistfight • Breaking things • irritable and impatient • Do not like to wait or stand in line

CYNICISM

Others are out to get them. • Others have hidden motives • Difficulty with trust • No one wants to help anyone (really). • Guarded and misunderstood

SCHOOL CONDUCT PROBLEMS

Hoodlums, Criminals • Stealing, lying, shoplifting, vandalism, and oppositional. • Admit doing bad things. • More common in clinical settings

LOW SELF ESTEEM

High scorers have negative views of themselves. In girls in clinical samples correlated with depression

LOW ASPIRATION

Not interested in success. • Dislike serious lectures or topics • look to others for leadership. • Others view them as lazy

SOCIAL DISCOMFORT

Shy • Prefer to be alone • Wait to talk until others do • Difficulty making friends

SCHOOL CONDUCT PROBLEMS

Poor grades • suspension • truancy • Friends at school are the best part!!! • school is a waste of time and boring.

NEGATIVE ATTITUDES

Negative attitude toward doctors and mental health system • Others won’t understand them • Unwilling to take responsibility • Report unwillingness to tell everything

MAC-R

Originally developed from items on the MMPI that were helpful in differentiating adults with alcohol problems. • Increased likelihood of alcohol or drug abuse problems • Interpersonally assertive and dominant • Self-indulgent and egocentric • Unconventional and impulsive • Greater likelihood of conduct disorders • Greater likelihood of legal involvement

ALCOHOL/DRUG PROBLEM ACKNOWLEDGMENT SCALE

Indicates knowledge and awareness of problem