The MMPI–2 Clinical Scales and Restructured Clinical (RC) Scales: Comparative Psychometric Properties and Relative Diagnostic Efficiency in Young Adults

Abstract

We examined the psychometric properties of the Restructured Clinical (RC) scales (Tellegen et al., 2003) of the MMPI–2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) in a large sample (N = 744) of 18-year-old college freshman. We found that the RC scales demonstrated good convergence with their Clinical scale counterparts and were more distinctive than the Clinical scales. The patterns of discriminant correlations for the RC scales were slightly clearer than those of the Clinical scales and a set of other existing MMPI–2 scales. Diagnostic efficiency statistics based on Clinical and RC scale elevation status did not differ appreciably. However, the diagnostic efficiency statistics of cutoff scores derived from mean RC and Clinical scale T scores improved on the traditional scale elevation measures. We consider the clinical implications of these findings.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by Niagara University Academic Year Research Grants to T. M. Osberg. Portions of these data were presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality Assessment, Miami, FL, March 2004. We thank the many freshman students who participated in this study and their freshman seminar instructors, without whose cooperation this research could not have been completed. Yossef Ben-Porath, Roger Greene, and an anonymous reviewer provided helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Special thanks are extended to Bonnie Rose, Susan Mason, Joe Cuda, Bernadette Brennan, and Catherine Serianni, the key administrators who assisted in the support and conduct of this research.

Notes

With the exception of RC3, which correlated –.42 with Scale 3, Tellegen et al. (2003) reported scale pair correlations (non-K-corrected) ranging from .38 to .89 in the MMPI–2 normative sample of men. The range for women in the normative sample was from .41 to .92, not including the RC3/Scale3 correlation of –.24.

Simms et al. (2005) reported scale pair correlations ranging from .65 to .95 among psychological clinic patients and .57 to .95 among veterans, not including the RC3/Scale 3 pair, which correlated –.12 and –.14 in these samples, respectively.

^a Highest cross correlation of each Clinical scale

^b Highest cross correlation of each RC scale.

^a Highest cross correlation of each RC scale with alternate set scales

^b Highest cross correlation of each alternate scale with RC scales

^c Highest cross correlation of each clinical scale with alternate set scales

^d Highest cross correlation of each alternate set scale with clinical scales.

^a The cut scores for M8 and mean RC scale T score reflect sample optimized cut scores. The cut scores for each measure were chosen on the basis of having superior hit rates to other cut scores. The optimal cut score for each measure was 59

^b For comparison, the values given for the MMPI–A are those obtained on a sample of 18-year-olds (N = 100) by Osberg and Poland (2002)

^c For comparison, the values given for Clinical scales in parentheses are those obtained on a sample of 18-year-olds (N = 100) by Osberg and Poland (2002)

^d Values given for mean RC in parentheses are those obtained when RCd was excluded.