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Time-Related Effects on MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory) Profiles of Police Academy Recruits

NCJ Number
78388
Journal
Journal of Clinical Psychology Volume: 37 Issue: 3 Dated: (July 1981) Pages: 518-522
Author(s)
R M Costello; L S Schoenfeld
Date Published
1981
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This study assessed secular changes in normative scores for the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) related to three developmental components: age, time of measurement, and cohort (i.e., year of birth). It is part of a series attempting to explicate issues with regard to the use of the MMPI as a tool in police applicant screening by the applied behavioral scientist.
Abstract
The MMPI profiles of 1,119 police applicants who survived the screening process into the Police Academy of the San Antonio Police Department (Texas) for the period 1964-75 were available for the study. The assessment involved two-way univariate analyses of variance to test for changes in MMPI scale scores laid out in three bifactor models: age x year of birth, time of measurement x year of birth, and age x time of measurement. Results indicate that age and year of birth did not affect MMPI scale scores but that time of measurement affected 9 to 13 scale scores. This suggests that the approach that police applicants take to the MMPI is relatively stable. In this case, the environmental change most likely to be powerful enough to influence the applicants' approach to the test was the introduction, in early 1972, of a clinical psychologist in the San Antonio Police Department. Applicants' test behavior might have become more guarded as a result of knowing that the test results would be scrutinized. This implies that the MMPI will be useful only to detect those applicants so disturbed that they are unable to conform their test behavior to fit ordinary perfomance standards. Graphs and two references are included.

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