when the mmpi was developed. mmpi-3 the mmpi-3 was released in december 2020. its primary goals were to enhance the item pool, update the test norms, optimize existing scales, and introduce new scales (that assess disordered eating, compulsivity, impulsivity, and self-importance). it features a new, nationally representative normative sample, selected to match projections for race and ethnicity, education, and age. spanish language norms are available for use with the u.s. spanish translation of the mmpi-3. scale composition clinical scales the original clinical scales were designed to measure common diagnoses of the era. number abbreviation name description no. of items 1 hs hypochondriasis concern with bodily symptoms 32 2 d depression depressive symptoms 57 3 hy hysteria awareness of problems and vulnerabilities 60 4 pd psychopathic deviate conflict, struggle, anger, respect for society's rules 50 5 mf masculinity/femininity stereotypical masculine or feminine interests/behaviors 56 6 pa paranoia level of trust, suspiciousness, sensitivity 40 7 pt psychasthenia worry, anxiety, tension, doubts, obsessiveness 48 8 sc schizophrenia odd thinking and social alienation 78 9 ma hypomania level of excitability 46 0 si social introversion people orientation 69 code types codetypes are a combination of the two or three (and according to a few authors even four) highest-scoring clinical scales (e.g. 4, 8, 6 = 486). codetypes are interpreted as a single, wider ranged elevation, rather than interpreting each scale individually. for profiles without defined code types interpretation should focus on the individual scales. psychopathic deviate this scale comes from the minnesota multiphasic personality inventory-2 (mmpi-2), where 50 statements compose the psychopathic deviate subscale. the 50 statements must be answered in true or false format as applied to one's self. the psychopathic deviate scale measures general social maladjustment and the absence of strongly pleasant experiences. the items on this scale tap into complaints about family and authority figures in general, self-alienation, social alienation and boredom. when diagnosing psychopathy, the mmpi-2's psychopathic deviate scale is considered one of the traditional personality tests that contain subscales relating to psychopathy, though they assess relatively non-specific tendencies towards antisocial or criminal behavior. clinical subscales the clinical scales are heterogeneous for their item content. to assist clinicians in interpreting the scales, researchers have developed subscales of more homogeneous items within each scale. the harris–lingoes (1955) scales was one of the most widely used results of this approach and were included in the mmpi-2 and mmpi-a. restructured clinical (rc) scales the restructured clinical scales were designed to be psychometrically improved versions of the original clinical scales, which were known to contain a high level of interscale correlation, overlapping items, and were confounded by the presence of an overarching factor that has since been extracted and placed in a separate scale (demoralization). the rc scales measure the core constructs of the original clinical scales. critics of the rc scales assert they have deviated too far from the original clinical scales, the implication being that previous research done on the clinical scales will not be relevant to the interpretation of the rc scales. however, researchers on the rc scales assert that the rc scales predict pathology in their designated areas better than their concordant original clinical scales while using significantly fewer items and maintaining equal to higher internal consistency, reliability and validity; further, unlike the original clinical scales, the rc scales are not saturated with the primary factor (demoralization, now captured in rcdem) which frequently produced diffuse elevations and made interpretation of results difficult; finally, the rc scales have lower interscale correlations and, in contrast to the original clinical scales, contain no interscale item overlap. the effects of removal of the common variance spread across the older clinical scales due to a general factor common to psychopathology, through use of sophisticated psychometric methods, was described as a paradigm shift in personality assessment. critics of the new scales argue that the removal of this common variance makes the rc scales less ecologically valid (less like real life) because real patients tend to present complex patterns of symptoms. proponents of the mmpi-2-rf argue that this potential problem is addressed by being able to view elevations on other rc scales that are less saturated with the general factor and, therefore, are also more transparent and much easier to interpret. scaleabbreviationnamedescription rcddemdemoralizationa general measure of distress that is linked with anxiety, depression, helplessness, hopelessness, low self-esteem, and a sense of inefficacy rc1somsomatic complaintsmeasures an individual's tendency to medically unexplainable physical symptoms rc2lpelow positive emotionsmeasures features of anhedonia – a common feature of depression rc3cyncynicismmeasures a negative or overly-critical worldview that is associated with an increased likelihood of impaired interpersonal relationships, hostility, anger, low trust, and workplace misconduct rc4asbantisocial behaviormeasures the acting out and social deviance features of antisocial personality such as rule breaking, irresponsibility, failure to conform to social norms, deceit, and impulsivity that often manifests in aggression and substance abuse rc6perideas of persecutionmeasures a tendency to develop paranoid delusions, persecutory beliefs, interpersonal suspiciousness and alienation, and mistrust rc7dnedysfunctional negative emotionsmeasures a tendency to worry/be fearful, be anxious, feel victimized and resentful, and appraise situations generally in ways that foster negative emotions rc8abxaberrant experiencesmeasures risk for psychosis, unusual thinking and perception, and risk for non-persecutory symptoms of thought disorders rc9hpmhypomanic activationmeasures features of mania such as aggression and excitability validity scales the validity scales in all versions of the mmpi-2 (mmpi-2 and rf) contain three basic types of validity measures: those that were designed to detect non-responding or inconsistent responding (cns, vrin, trin), those designed to detect when clients are over reporting or exaggerating the prevalence or severity of psychological symptoms (f, fb, fp, fbs), and those designed to detect when test-takers are under-reporting or downplaying psychological symptoms (l, k, s). a new addition to the validity scales for the mmpi-2-rf includes an over reporting scale of somatic symptoms (fs) as well as revised versions of the validity scales of the mmpi-2 (vrin-r, trin-r, f-r, fp-r, fbs-r, l-r, and k-r). the mmpi-2-rf does not include the s or fb scales, and the f-r scale now covers the entirety of the test. abbreviation new in version name description cns 1 "cannot say" questions not answered (left blank or both true and false) l 1 "lie" / uncommon virtues intentional under-reporting of symptoms f 1 infrequency over-reporting symptoms (in first half of test) k 1 defensiveness unintentional under-reporting of symptoms (e.g. defensiveness, denial) fb 2 f back over-reporting symptoms (in last half of test) vrin 2 variable response inconsistency answering similar/opposite question pairs inconsistently trin 2 true response inconsistency answering questions all true/all false f-k 2 f minus k honesty of test responses/not faking good or bad s 2 superlative self-presentation improving upon k scale, "appearing excessively good" fp 2 f-psychopathology over-reporting symptoms in individuals with psychopathology fbs 2 "faking bad scale" / symptom validity over-reporting somatic or cognitive symptoms in disability/personal injury claimants rbs 2 response bias scale exaggerated memory complaints in forensic settings or disability claims fs 2-rf infrequent somatic response overreporting of somatic symptoms crin 3 combined response inconsistency combination of random and fixed inconsistent responding content scales although elevations on the clinical scales are significant indicators of certain psychological conditions, it is difficult to determine exactly what specific behaviors the high scores are related to. the content scales of the mmpi-2 were developed for the purpose of increasing the incremental validity of the clinical scales. the content scales contain items intended to provide insight into specific types of symptoms and areas of functioning that the clinical scales do not measure, and are supposed to be used in addition to the clinical scales to interpret profiles. they were developed by butcher, graham, williams and ben-porath using similar rational and statistical procedures as wiggins who developed the original mmpi content scales. the items on the content scales contain obvious content and therefore are susceptible to response bias – exaggeration or denial of symptoms, and should be interpreted with caution. t scores greater than 65 on any content scale are considered high scores. abbr.namedescription anxanxietygeneral symptoms of anxiety, somatic problems, nervousness or worry frsfearsspecific fears and general fearfulness obsobsessivenessdifficulty making decisions, excessive rumination and dislike change depdepressionfeelings of low mood, lack of energy, suicidal ideation and other depressive features heahealth concernsconcerns about illness and physical symptoms bizbizarre mentationthe presence of psychotic thought processes angangerfeelings and expression of anger cyncynicismdistrust and suspiciousness of other people and their motives aspantisocial practicesexpression of nonconforming attitudes and possible issues with authority tpatype a behaviorirritability, impatience and competitiveness lselow self esteemnegative attitudes about self, own ability and submissiveness sodsocial discomfortpreferring to be alone and discomfort when meeting new people famfamily problemsresentment, anger and perceived lack of support from family members wrkwork interferenceattitudes that contribute to poor work performance trtnegative treatment indicatorsfeelings of pessimism and unwillingness to reveal personal information to others content component scales the mmpi-2 and mmpi-a included subscales for some of the content scales to further specify the results. for example, depression (dep) was broken down into lack of drive (dep1), dysphoria (dep2), self-depreciation (dep3) and suicidal ideation (dep4). supplemental scales to supplement these multidimensional scales and to assist in interpreting the frequently seen diffuse elevations due to the general factor (removed in the rc scales) were also developed, with the more frequently used being the substance abuse scales (mac-r, aps, aas), designed to assess the extent to which a client admits to or is prone to abusing substances, and the a (anxiety) and r (repression) scales, developed by welsh after conducting a factor analysis of the original mmpi item pool. abbr. name broad personality characteristics a anxiety r repression es ego strength do dominance re social responsibility generalized emotional distress mt college maladjustment pk post-traumatic stress disorder - keane mds marital distress behavioral dyscontrol ho hostility o-h overcontrolled hostility mac-r macandrew-revised aas addiction admission aps addiction potential gender role gm gender role – masculine gf gender role – feminine psy-5 (personality psychopathology five) scales the psy-5 is set of scales measuring dimensional traits of personality disorders, originally developed from factor analysis of the personality disorder content of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. originally, these scales were titled: aggressiveness, psychoticism, constraint, negative emotionality/neuroticism, and positive emotionality/extraversion; however, in the most current edition of the mmpi-2 and mmpi-2-rf, the constraint and positive emotionality scales have been reversed and renamed as disconstraint and introversion / low positive emotionality. across several large samples including clinical, college, and normative populations, the mmpi-2 psy-5 scales showed moderate internal consistency and intercorrelations comparable with the domain scales on the neo-pi-r big five personality measure. also, scores on the mmpi-2 psy-5 scales appear to be similar across genders, and the structure of the psy-5 has been reproduced in a dutch psychiatric sample. abbr.scale namedescription aggraggressivenessmeasures an individual's tendency towards overt and instrumental aggression that typically includes a sense of grandiosity and a desire for power psycpsychoticismmeasures the accuracy of an individual's inner representation of objective reality, often associated with perceptual aberration and magical ideation discdisconstraintmeasures an individual's level of control over their own impulses, physical risk aversion, and traditionalism negenegative emotionality / neuroticismmeasures an individual's tendency to experience negative emotions, particularly anxiety and worry intrintroversion/low positive emotionalitymeasures an individual's tendency to experience positive emotions and have enjoyment from social experiences mmpi-a-rf the minnesota multiphasic personality inventory – adolescent – restructured form (mmpi-a-rf) is a broad-band instrument used to psychologically evaluate adolescents. it was published in 2016 and was primarily authored by robert p. archer, richard w. handel, yossef s. ben-porath, and auke tellegen. it is a revised version of the minnesota multiphasic personality inventory – adolescent (mmpi-a). like the mmpi-a, this version is intended for use with adolescents aged 14–18 years old. it consists of 241 true-false items which produce scores on 48 scales: 6 validity scales (vrin-r, trin-r, crin, f-r, l-r, k-r), 3 higher-order scales (eid, thd, bxd), 9 restructured clinical scales (rcd, rc1, rc2, rc3, rc4, rc6, rc7, rc8, rc9), 25 specific problem scales, and revised versions of the mmpi-a psy-5 scales (aggr-r, psyc-r, disc-r, nege-r, intr-r). it also features 14 critical items, including 7 regarding depressing and suicidal ideation. the mmpi-a-rf was designed to address limitations of its predecessor, such as the scale heterogeneity and item overlap of the original clinical scales. the weaknesses of the clinical scales resulted in intercorrelations of several mmpi-a scales and limited discriminant validity