Variable
The MMPI-2-RF contains no fewer than four Fscales. The original MMPI Fscale was intended to identify
those individuals who are attempting to fake bad or over-report psychiatric symptomatology in order to gain
sympathy or other benefit. The F-rscale is the analog of the original Fscale for Infrequent Responses. It has 32
items that are infrequently answered in the keyed direction by individuals without psychopathology.
Independent evidence of the presence or absence of that pathology is essential for the proper interpretation
of the Fscales. The more recently developed Fp-r scale (Infrequent Psychopathology Responses) ( Arbisi &
Ben-Porath, 1995; Archer, Handel, Greene, Baer, & Elkins, 2001 ) is intended to compensate to some extent for
those individuals with genuine psychopathology. Scores on this scale’s 21 items are less likely to be confounded
with severe distress than with the F-rscale. The Infrequent Somatic Responses scale ( Fs) has 16 items with
somatic concerns that are rarely reported by true medical patients. It is based on the same logic as the other
varieties of Fscale. The Symptom Validity Scale (SVS) or Fake Bad Scale ( FBS, FBS-r ) on the MMPI-2-RF has 30
items out of the 43 items on the original FBS ( Lees-Haley, English, & Glenn, 1991 ). That scale was developed to
identify individuals who had apparently exaggerated their symptomatology in the context of civil litigation.
There has been substantial controversy over the application of this scale with the original MMPI-2 ( Arbisi &
Butcher, 2004; Ben-Porath, Greve, Bianchini, & Kaufmann, 2010; Greiffenstein, Baker, Axelrod, Peck, & Gervais,
2004; Greiffenstein, Baker, Gola, Donders, & Miller, 2002; Greve & Bianchini, 2004; Iverson, Henrichs, Barton, &
Allen, 2002 ), but this seems to have been resolved to an extent such that the MMPI-2-RF manuals report data on
theFBS-r from the MMPI-2 norm sample.
Sample
See the above description of the various samples involved with the MMPI-2-RF validity scales. The manual
(Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008 ) reports means of 1.68 ( SD52.20) for the F-rscale score, 0.89 ( SD51.17) for the
F-p-r scale score, 1.00 (SD 51.23) for the F-sscale score, and a mean of 7.62 ( SD53.15) for the FBS-r scale score.
All these values are for the non-gendered MMPI-2-RF normative sample.
Reliability
Internal Consistency
The Technical Manual ( Tellegen & Ben-Porath, 2008 ) reports Cronbach alpha coefficients for five samples, two
of which are psychiatric patients. For the F-rscale score, alpha coefficients range from .69 to .88, and are generally
higher in clinical samples. For the Fp-r scale score, alpha coefficients range from .41 to .60 and again are higher in
clinical samples. Turning to the F-sscale score, alpha coefficients range from .40 to .68, and showed a similar pat-
tern to the other frequency scales. Finally, for the FBS-r scale score, alpha coefficients range from .50 up to .76,
with the clinical samples again tending to be higher than for the normal samples.
Test/C0Retest
With the same test /C0retest sample as noted above, test /C0retest reliability is highest for the F-rscale score at .82,
and lowest for the F-sscale score at .51. The Fp-r scale score and FBS-r scale score have intermediate test /C0retest
figures at .70 and .72, respectively ( Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008 ).
Validity
Convergent/Concurrent
The Technical Manual ( Tellegen & Ben-Porath, 2008 ) contains correlations among the various MMPI-2-RF
validity scale scores. In addition, there has been some research based upon existing samples to examine the ques-
tion of the ability of the various Fscale scores to discriminate among groups. Sellbom, Toomey, Wygant,
Kucharski, and Duncan (2010) used the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS; Rogers et al., 1992)
to split the sample of 125 criminal defendants into groups felt probably to be malingering and felt to be not
malingering. All four Fscale scores from the MMPI-2-RF were significantly higher in the group of 25 probable
malingerers. Differences had the largest effect sizes for F-rand Fp-r, with overall correct classification rates of
80% and higher.
Divergent/Discriminant
Sellbom and Bagby (2010) contrasted a group of 214 undergraduate students instructed to fake bad either with
or without coaching and a group of 146 genuine psychiatric patients who took the MMPI-2 under standard31 MEASURES OF OVER-REPORTING
I. INTRODUCTION: CORE ISSUES IN ASSESSMENT